Map making layers

When working on a textile art map project, accuracy is not my main concern. The roads and rivers and neighborhoods are indicated but not replicated. I think you have to start with an actual, accurate map because it aids in placement and proportion of the elements. After you use it to get your basic design decisions made, you don’t need much more info from that map. However, you have to build that map up from the first drawing layer, to background, to paint, hand and machine stitch, feature placements, batting and backing, layer by layer.

The last map picture I made had a single piece of my hand printed fabric for my background. If I had found an appropriate piece for this project, I certainly would have used it. I searched through my tons of scraps and didn’t find anything that worked.

I began to select large light pieces that I felt would allow me to show the buildings and roads and green spaces. I may have mentioned before that I do have lots of scraps!!

Large pieces simply were not working for me, so I started using small bits.

And continued on……….even some of these were too large. My final background assembly came out very “patchy”, but it gives me the feeling I was looking for.

Paint to blur and blend the edges would be used by my map teacher, but I’m not doing that on this one…at least not at this stage. I think there will be some paint used a bit further down the line, though.

For now, I’m using stitch to define my roads, rivers and neighborhoods. This is strictly providing guidelines for me to follow as I continue to build the layers up.

This is what I’m seeing on the front. Red, you ask? Yes, red. I fully expect to restitch every one of these lines from the front with other threads, but if that changes, I still like the red!!

I’m doing the stitching from the back, on all those lines I traced. I wasn’t sure when I was doing that tracing if it was necessary, but I’m glad now that I did. It’s making this part so much easier. Here’s what the back looks like.

Definitions…that’s all it is right now.

And as quickly as this seems to be moving, the next several weeks are going to be busy for me with outside obligations so I probably won’t have much studio time. I will be longing to finish this and will try to steal every minute available to work on it. It is sooooooo much fun to create a piece bit by bit and layer by layer!