Map no.10 - suddenly developed and here it is

Last night when I hadn't enough brain to actually tackle a waistband, I thought I would see what happened with the map which has been peeking out at me amidst the blouses and other scraps on my table.

I did my City and Guilds Qualification in Hemel Hempstead. Nearly every week for 4 years. Through the traffic on the M25 at whatever o'clock in the morning. If you left at 10 past 7, you got there at 8:00 or so. If you left at 7:30, you got there after the class started at 9:00. So, I often took a nap in the carpark of the college. OR finished stitching whatever it was that was the current projects.

Apart from fighting the traffic on the various motorways on the way there. There was the daunting run the gauntlet experience of getting across the Magic Roundabout. So, I decided I would use the diagram of it in developing the map. I used the printer/photocopier to enlarge it.

when I went looking for what fabric, I decided to use this piece which was a mop it up blotter fabric from a Masterclass I did with Rayna Gillman at FOQ a few years ago. It was about printing your own fabrics.

So I fused the back and began to cut out the shape. I decided to use the roundabout as a design motif, rather than using the map of it as I have mostly been doing.

I found a background that was quite a bit more subtle than the surface designed piece. I liked the contrast of the grunge looking piece with one that seemed more elegant. In a small way, it represented the wide areas of interest in textiles I have developed as a result of the C+G (not that the course itself was particularly encouraging to someone who wanted to think outside the box! but we had a very good teacher for design who opened up worlds for me by showing anything was possible in design.)

Once I laid out the cut roundabout motifs, I fused them into place.

You can see that I chose to create more interest on the background. I decided to use other parts of the road system around the college. I used a map I had printed from the college way back on the first week so I could figure out how to get there. I cut away sections leaving the roads around the college. Then I used it like a stencil inside the open space of the roundabout motif using a silver gel pen.

detail

I thought some of the outside spaces could do with more, so I used the section of the road system which included the roundabout and some of the roads I took to get there. I traced them with both metallic and opaque gel pen colours.
and then for just a bit more, I used a very small version of the roundabout to create star-like motifs in other gel pen colours.

And then stitched it. and found a similar colour fabric to the background for a binding. and it was already done by 10:00pm tonight! I usually hand stitch the binding at the back, but I thought I would just experiment with machine stitching from the front. Okay, it works and is quicker, but I prefer the hand stitching as it is tidier.

So there we are! October's map before the end of October! are you in shock?

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.