Embroidered World Map, Part 3

Lots of pictures coming with this week's update! First, a peek at the preliminary design work. Before I sew any coins on, I always sketch the design, and sometimes multiple ideas for each country so I can pick my favorite. This kind of sketching is most fun when the girls and I do it together. Here are Annie's and my sketchbooks, and Laurel's drawing paper. On my page I was trying a number of pictures for China and Spain, and Annie was copying some pictures already on the map. Laurel drew a Chinese house with a rainbow bursting from the roof.

Annie's Mexican sombrero and serape next to the one stitched on the map. I love it!

And here I am, listening to Craftlit and working on the map while my tired baby fights against sleep. I always listen to audiobooks or podcasts while I work at night, whether it's handwork or just dishes, and Craftlit is both. Each podcast episode contains chat about various crafty projects, and then a few chapters of a book with helpful notes from the former English teacher who hosts the show. 

I often find that certain projects become associated in my mind with the book I was listening to while working on it. Just looking at the project will bring back scenes and memories from the story. The baby wrap I wove while pregnant with Eliza is forever associated with The Moonstone, and at least the first part of this map is now linked in my mind with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. For what it's worth, I like The Moonstone a lot more, but I'm glad I listened to both.

So, here are the five new coins added to the map this week! First up is China, which came from my friend Anna along with a fun letter about her trip to China a few years ago. The girls and I enjoyed reading it and looking through Anna's vacation pictures on Facebook to get ideas for our map. 

We settled on stitching a part of the imperial palace known as The Forbidden City in Beijing. I hope someday we get to visit it in person!

In geography we're finishing our study of Europe, so with that and with Europe filling up, I decided to focus on finishing that continent for now. For Greece we kept things simple, by surrounding the coin with a laurel victor wreath. I thought about a meander design, but went with this one for my own sweet Laurel.

Could Spain be anything other than a charging bull? Well, actually it was close between the bull and a flamenco guitar, but the bull won that contest. I tried giving him a rose between his horns, reminiscent of Ferdinand, but it looked strange so I took it out. I still feel like he needs more color, but the silhouette is effective too.

Sometimes when I'm designing I have something in mind, but I almost always do a few image searches first. For Portugal I was initially thinking of a sailing ship, but when I searched "Portugal national symbol" I discovered the Rooster of Barcelos. I was enchanted! Even though it's a little big for a small country, I had to include it.

And finally, leaving Europe for a bit, our own United States! I picked the 1976 bicentennial drummer boy quarter for the map. The quarter makes the head of the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by celebratory fireworks. Something I (re)learned when stitching the Statue of Liberty is that the seven points of her crown stand for the seven continents of the earth. How appropriate for a map displaying coins American travelers brought back from all over the world!

Zooming out, you can see how the map is filling up! In fact, in some areas I'm having to make hard choices about which countries to include and which are going to get left out. Central America and the Caribbean are very tight, as is western Europe. Currently we have coins from 37 countries, but six of those might not make the map. Those I'm saving for the end, because I'm thinking about sewing those around the corners with some of the designs I loved but couldn't fit on the map. So, we'll have to see.

The next update will include a list of the countries we have, and a (much shorter!) list of the countries I'm still trying to find. Thanks to all of you who have joined in this project, and to everyone else following along the journey. I'm so excited to see our black & white map filling up with color and texture!

Embroidered World Map, Part 2

Since I first wrote about our coin map project, friends have shared coins from 10 more countries, and I've added 5 coins to our map. Wow! It's been so fun to find out where friends have traveled, and to learn more about each place myself as I try to decide how best to make a simple thread drawing to evoke one aspect of each country.

The girls have also been enjoying watching the progress, reading the notes from friends, sharing their colored pencils for sketching, and sitting on my lap as I sew. This last can make progress slow, although the cuddles are always sweet.

I'm not working in any particular order, mostly stitching on coins as I have inspiration for a picture to stitch around each. So, this week I added coins scattered around the world. First up is this kiwi bird from New Zealand. This was probably the easiest design to settle on - the round body of the bird fit so perfectly around the coin!

This is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey. I haven't traveled that much internationally yet, but I did spend three weeks in Turkey in college which was an amazing experience, especially as a Classics major! The Hagia Sophia was an Orthodox church, then converted into a mosque with the fall of Constantinople, and now is a museum open to the public.

This is me and Edward Bear in front of the Hagia Sophia. Sorry about the huge palm tree in the way. Edward came to Turkey with me, and I took pictures of him touring the country since I was on a trip with strangers and I didn't want all my pictures to be of people I'd only know for a short time. Edward was a fun unifying element in the photos, and now the girls really enjoy looking through the scrapbooks of his travels!

Just for fun, here's Edward in front of the nearby Istanbul Blue Mosque.

Back to the map now. South and central America are filling up quickly! This is a tortoise for Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

For Costa Rica I really wanted to make one of their gorgeously painted ox cart wheels, but after making a sketch or two I had to admit that there simply wasn't room for such a big design. So I did the Blue Morpho Butterfly instead, which I love almost as much. God has created so many amazing vibrant colors in nature!

I think my favorite design to date (maybe tied with the Dutch windmill) is this Mexican sombrero and serape. I was always planning on a sombrero for Mexico, but I came across serapes for sale when I was looking for Mexican fabric to making a baby swing. Right away I knew it would be the perfect motif to add to my Mexican design. It was fun to needle weave such a small scarf!

Zooming out, here's a picture of the whole map, along with the coins that are yet to be sewn on. 11 down, 13 (and counting) to go! Here's the updated list of countries for which we have coins:

1. Argentina
2. Bermuda
3. Belize
4. Bolivia
5. Brazil
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. China
9. Costa Rica
10. Ecuador
11. France
12. Honduras
13. India
14. Mexico
15. Namibia
16. The Netherlands
17. New Zealand
18. Peru
19. The Philippines
20. South Africa
21. Switzerland
22. Turkey
23. The United Kingdom
24. The United States 

If you've sent coins for our project, thank you, thank you, thank you! This project wouldn't be possible without you! I'm hoping to keep posting updates of the map progress every week or two, and I'm looking forward to continuing to share this project with you all.

Embroidered World Map - The Beginning

 

Today I get to share with you the beginning of a new collaborative art project that I'm extremely excited about. I've been thinking about this for over a year, and with our focus on geography in kindergarten this year, the time was finally right. 

Here's the project: I'm embroidering a world map, filled with coins from countries all over the world. Each coin will be worked into a little picture that symbolizes something important about the country - it might be a landmark, or a part of the flag, or something the country is particularly known for.

After rummaging around my house, I found coins from 14 countries which you can see laid out on the fabric map above. Six of them are already sewn on, and I have sketches for the other eight. When it's all finished, I'm either going to frame it or stretch it over a frame (the fabric map I'm using is canvas, so it would work well either way), and hang it on an empty wall in our guest room.

Here are a few close-ups of the coins that are finished. Things are already getting a little crowded in Europe. A Dutch windmill, Switzerland's Alps, and France's Eiffel tower all overflow their borders and almost entirely cover Germany.

Canada gets a maple leaf around a maple leaf penny. I was thinking about one of the larger coins since Canada is a pretty big landmass to fill, but Laurel insisted on this combination.

Brazil is represented by a soccer ball.

And the Philippines have the "Three Stars and a Sun" from their flag.

So, here's where the collaboration comes in! I have coins from 14 different countries so far. I've marked all the countries represented in red on the map. As you can see, some areas are pretty well covered, but there are some shockingly large omissions. For example, I don't have a single coin from the continents of Africa or Oceania. And the huge areas of Russia and China are similarly empty.

If you've been to one of these countries and come home with a pocket full of extra change, would you consider sending us one of the coins for our map? You'll get to see it turned into a beautiful picture on our map, as I post progress updates both here on my blog and on Facebook. And, if you're ever in our area, you can come see the map in person once it's framed and hanging on our guest room wall!

Here is the list of countries I have already:

Argentina

Bermuda

Brazil

Canada

Ecuador

France

India

Mexico

The Netherlands

The Philippines

Switzerland

Turkey

The United Kingdom

The United States 

If you'd like to join in by sending a coin our way, leave me a comment here, send me an e-mail at mama.hobbit.arts [at] gmail.com, or message me on Facebook! And for a look at some of the ideas I'm tossing around as well as tutorials on some of the embroidery stitches I'm learning, you can check out my Pinterest board too.

Also, if you're sending a coin and have a special memory from your visit, or a favorite picture you took, I'd love to hear about or see that too. I'm really looking forward to going on this armchair journey around the world with all of you!