I have always had a love of maps and remember drawing them constantly in school. I also love reading maps and drawing my own every time I visit a new place. Weird to some maybe but I love it! However, despite this keen interest in maps I stumbled across a gorgeous shop on facebook in a certain county in Ireland and thought to myself “where on earth is that”? I know we’re not exactly a gargantuan country but I couldn’t place it. So I off I went to Mr Google to find out and whilst there I remembered a project I had started for my previous blog and thought now is the time to finish it. So off I went in search of the original drawings etc and here is the results, with a bit of the process too.
It all starts with a printed copy of your chosen map, mine of course being Ireland. I got it enlarged onto A3 first (as above) and then I reversed it and traced it. You’ll see why in a minute.
Then I got some bondaweb (love this stuff) and traced each county onto the paper part.
Then I cut each county out and went to my scrap bag and got lots of different fabrics which I ironed the bondaweb onto.
After that I got a background fabric which I traced the outline of the map of Ireland onto and started placing each county in place like a jigsaw before finally ironing and stitching in place using a free motion embroidery foot on the sewing machine.
I’m super happy with how it came out.
If you fancy learning more about using bondaweb, turning pictures into stitches and how to do machine embroidery sign up here to hear about upcoming workshops at the cottage.
