Book excerpt: A creative and practical guide on how to get in touch with your local natural world to create thoughtful works of textile art. Filled with projects and step-by-step techniques, this book is perfect for textile students and professionals alike. Renowned quilter and textile artist Helen Parrott explores the creative potential of your local surroundings and teaches you the processes and techniques used to create beautiful textile artworks. Drawing on the Slow Stitch movement, she explains how mark-making techniques can be used meditatively to record personal lives and surroundings influenced by seasonal changes of colour, energy and light. She encourages you to connect to your own locality, whether it be urban or rural, at home or on holiday, and its specific seasonal aspects in order to create a personal, working cycle of textile art. The book is divided into seasons; from learning how to spot the first signs of Spring to recording seasonal characteristics – equinox through to solstice – Helen teaches you how to be in tune with your environment. Each location will have different signs, so each artwork will truly be unique. Techniques and projects are also covered in this book: she first teaches you the basics of both hand and machine stitch techniques, working with free-form stitching, chain stitch, corded quilting and then moves onto appliqué, blackwork and dyeing. The techniques build in complexity ending with pieced textiles and collages. Helen also explores how to work with dot and line, repeating patterns, light and shadow, colour (and lack of colour), plant structures and people in landscapes. The last chapter consolidates techniques you've learnt in the book and showcases finished works from her exhibitions, as well as the Bradford Textile Archive, to help you better understand where inspiration leads.