From Scraps to Maps: City Scenes

1. Introduction - From Scraps to Maps: City Scenes: Hello, fabric cartographers, and welcome to my class from Scraps to Maps City Scenes. A class where we will make a 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch fabric map using mostly fabric scraps, thread, and other recycled and found items you may have. This is a multi level class for anyone comfortable sewing by hand or with a machine. It's very loose sewing. You don't have to be advanced and I don't want you to be intimidated if your stitches are a little bit wonky. That actually will work great for this project. I'm Zoe, and I'm a multi disciplinary artist. That means I have different art practices and interests, and I teach a variety of them in my classes right here on Skillshare, quilting and sewing, recycled and upcycled arts and crafts projects, art journaling, and more. I have even had several of my fiber art pieces on display in galleries and exhibits. This class is perfect for the person who has access to fabric scraps in all sizes and colors and textures, is interested in collage style art and fiber art as a practice, is able to include hand stitching or machine stitching, likes maps or is at least curious about them. But please note, I will not be going into detail about hand sewing or machine sewing, but you will see many examples and action shots of both. This city scene class is number one in a multi part series where each class will focus on a different type of map that we can make from fabric scraps. And this class is a starting point to get you on your map making journey. Let's take a look at some of the basic supplies and details about the project and also my handy dandy getting started worksheets. 2. The Project & The Supplies: This class will focus on a city scene, which is a great starting point because cities tend to follow grid and geometric patterns and shapes. The individual lessons in each class will focus on elements that will make up your 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch map scene. Your map can be a macro view or a microview, meaning bigger items on a larger scale or lots of little things, and it can be a combination of micro and macro. You are welcome to work smaller or larger. I felt this was a great starter size, and the squares can be combined later for a larger project. Unlike real maps that often need to be exact for the user, these maps can be a little less structured and precise. There are no rules this class is a starting point to get you on your map making journey. So get ready to let go and have your imagination run free. Let's take a look at some of the basic supplies and details about the project and also my handy dandy getting started worksheet. The supplies include neutral fabrics and quilting batting which will be used for the foundation layer. Shear fabrics for layering on the foundation layer, any and all fabric scraps. I even have some denim in my pile, felt, which is a great texture. It's easy to cut out shapes and comes in a load of colors. Black fabric cut into strips, which will be used to make roads and streets by adding yellow and white lines, threads, embroidery floss in a variety of colors, but definitely black and white and yellow orange. And greens are great for grass and plants. A cutting grid. I have the 12.5 inch grid shown here, but you can work with what you have or just cut a square with a ruler. Cutting tools, pins and clips, and assorted items like beads, buttons, sticks, wool, anything and everything you have lying around can be fun to add and play with. A sewing machine if you have access to one, or you can do this project simply by sewing by hand. For hanging the project at the end, you will need a wood doll, which can also be a stick like driftwood, or a chopstick, a skewer, or a metal rod, clips, wire, yarn, rope. My worksheet is a great starting point to think about what you want to include in your map. Trust me, when I say, you may forget as you get into the project. Or the project may take different turns, and you may need to remember some items to put in. The worksheet will help you organize your ideas, think of new ones, and have some resources in your back pocket. When I take a look at my worksheet, I know I'm going to be working on a city map. My reference could be the Internet, it could be my mind. I'm going to do a grid and I would like some haphazard streets. I definitely like trees. I love putting grass with stitching. Plants are fun also. For water upon sky, I love clouds. I'll definitely include avenues, streets, a taxi cab, my favorite. Maybe a bike or scooter. And, you know, I will add a pigeon because that is a very city thing. And other things that come to mind, the taxi. I definitely want that. And I don't want to use too much black because I'm going to be using that in the streets. Throughout the project, this is a great sheet for me to look back on when I'm looking to fill space and just remembering the things I wanted to include. The worksheet is a downloadable PDF and can be found in the projects and resources section of this class. You'll find the supply list there too, along with the building Ideas sheet as well. Once you have your supplies gathered, your worksheet filled out, or at least looked at, it's time to get to the base layer or what I call the foundation. Follow me. 3. The Foundation: The foundation is the base layer of your map and will be made up of a few elements. A solid or pattern piece of any fabric, but possibly something on the subtler or paler side is a good place to start, since we will be adding a lot on top of this. A piece of batting that will be the bottom layer. It can be added later or right from the start. Personally, I like working with a heartier base that has some structure and attaching your base cotton piece and the batting together helps with that. Then some swatches of fabric that can be neutral, they can be see through. They can be another color or pattern. This will start to make up some zones within your map. Here are some examples of the way I assembled the base layer with the various differing materials. I cut a square using a plastic grid. I use the 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch size, but they come in different sizes. So use what you have, or you can just cut a square without a grid. I cut the batting in the same size. Then I attach the two pieces using a similar colored thread with my sewing machine. I sewed a border around every side of the square. Next, I gathered up my shear and see through pieces of fabrics for some layering. I cut various sizes and shapes and place them on the base layer, then attach them with my sewing machine again. But you can also hand sew these layers to one another. Here's one with some shear fabric and also a randomly shaped green piece of cotton. And one more example with some dark strips and a plain tan burlap fabric. Now that we have the foundation assembled, let's move on to the next lesson buildings. Since this is a city scene map, we are going to have a lot of fun with different ways of making buildings, skyscrapers, brownstones, and more. Cities tend to take on a geometric vibe, so let's square up and head over to the next lesson. 4. Buildings: One thing I really like about this project is that you can do pieces of it on the go. For example, when making a city scene map, I really like working on little pieces by hand while watching TV with my family, lying in bed with my dog, sitting outside, traveling in a car or an airplane. For making my buildings, I like these three approaches. You can sew rectangular pieces of fabric together to form the buildings. You can sew by hand or machine and stitch the outlines and windows of various sized buildings onto smaller pieces of fabric that can be combined later. You can literally reference a street from a photo or do it from your imagination. I have a building shape guide in the resources section that you can download and use for inspiration. For the fabric square buildings, I took a few different colored scraps and cut them into rectangles and squares. Then I laid them out on a piece of square cotton to make a rough skyline. Then I iron the scraps and I pin them into place. I sewed them on using my sewing machine, and I did outlines, some different stitching, and I cut through the buildings, too. For the machine sewn outlines, I took a piece of fabric and drew some lines with a white pencil. Then I followed the lines with my sewing machine. I added windows afterwards with different size posca pens in black and yellow. For the hand stitched on many pieces of fabric, I took a scrap of denim fabric and embroidery floss and sewed outlines and windows with no plan. I enjoyed the relaxed free flow of just sewing various lines and seeing how they came out. I added Windows with basic running stitch. Now it's time to assemble the various building types and blocks onto my foundation layer for the rough layout. I trim the edges off the fabric piece skyline. I gathered up all the pieces I have made with buildings in the different styles, hand stitching and machine stitching. Then I took all my scraps with buildings and started to place them on the foundation. I have two foundations, which can be attached later, or I can keep them as separate pieces. It's a little like putting a puzzle together, although there is no right or wrong spot for each piece of fabric. The swatches on the foundation sort of break up the gray in the background and give the map some interesting visuals. The green makes for a nice park like area. Once I am happy with the layout, I will pin the building squares into place. The buildings attached like this will help me with the next step of the project. Now that the buildings and structures have been created and attached, it's time to tackle the streets. Let's get this show on the road. But 5. Streets: Streets can be applied as strips of fabric, often dark. And you can add road markings, too, like dashed white lines, solid orange or white lines, double lines. Returning to the project with the foundation layer and buildings pinned onto it, I will take those black strips of fabric in varying sizes and simply place them throughout the project. Often at the base of the buildings. It's good I didn't sew the buildings on yet because it's nice to be able to tuck some streets behind a building. I will pin the streets in place. Trim the excess, save those scraps for other roads. Then I will make my way to the sewing machine to sew them in place with black thread. Once the streets are sewn down, it's time to attach the building pieces, but perhaps with a different color thread. I have a weird little edge of the fabric here, and I may cover it up with more black street or an alternate embellishment. We'll get to that later on. I may consult my worksheet for some ideas. And here I have a lot of empty space that will need to be filled. Some extra angled streets is a good idea, and some street signs may work. Next, it's time to hand stitch in the streets with white or yellow thread. And I can do different colors on different streets. This is a great part of the project to work on with my furry friend Gabby hanging out with me. I like hand stitching using the basic embroidery running stitch style, an up and down method that can be neat or even a bit messy. As you can see, the street stitches really tighten up the project. Later, we will add the hand sewn street signs to some of the empty areas, as well as some greenery, like grass, flowers, trees, et cetera, to fill in the empty areas. And I will gather up a variety of green colored thread to fill in that green space. Now that we have the buildings and roads in place, let's move on to filling some of those empty spaces and green spaces with parks and other nature. 6. Green Spaces: Mm hmm. It's up to you if you want to include green space in your city scene. Most cities do have these areas, and it's a nice break from the geometric of the City grid and the concrete jungle. Trees can be created from a variety of sources. I used vinyl and some old green scraps to create these trees. Then I back them on black felt so they would pop. Here, I've used popsicle sticks. You can use other mixed media elements like sticks and cut paper and green felt. I attached the trees with brown thread in an X design. I also like the idea of gardens, which could mean grass and flowers, which I have done with embroidery techniques. The seed stitch, the double rice stitch, the French knot for flowers, and seed beads or even buttons for added dimension. And many green spaces have water elements like fountains, ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans. For the pond, I used some V stitches to represent water. For the Pacific Ocean, I use the running stitch along with some wave shaped fabric pieces. You can see how some odd shaped areas on your map can be embellished with greenery. Grass, trees, flowers, and more can be stitched on or attached with any mixed media bits you come up with. Don't forget to consult your worksheet to remind you of any ideas to fill in spaces. As your map starts to really fill in, you may see some blank spots, and this is where the fun of embellishments comes in, like signage, transportation, animals, people, anything. Let's find our way to the embellishments lesson. 7. Embellishments: Embellishments. This can be the fun part where you add embellishments and details. Transportation like cars and buses or subway stations, signage, street names, numbers, restaurants, people or animals, certain landmarks can be created and inserted. The sky is the limit. Literally, you can include airspace items, too, like clouds, sun, weather elements. Let's take a look at some of the embellishments I've made for my maps. Here, I'm using felt to make a taxi cab for my city scene. Felt is affordable and easy to cut. I will place this car in that odd spot on my map that had the frayed edge. I will hand stitch the tires and stripes onto the taxi with white thread. I also made a felt pigeon, a classic city bird. Using green felt, I can sew the names of any streets on to make a street sign. And here I sewed onto denim the street names and numbers. This one shows freeway signs made out of felt with hand stitching for the letters and machine stitching to assemble the pieces. Felt is great for clouds, too. I cut blue and white pieces, placed them down on my map, and sew them directly onto the piece with opposite colored thread. Blue on the white cloud, white on the blue cloud. As you can tell, your map is almost complete. Let's direct our attention to the final step of backing, connecting, and hanging your map. 8. Backing, Connecting, Hanging: Backing, framing and hanging. Once your square is done, it's time to finish it off. This means adding the backing to cover the stitchw and batting and possibly combining a few of the squares to make a bigger map, and finally hanging it. Backing. As you can see, the backside of your map is looking a bit messy. Now, of course, that may not be seen, but I think it's professional to cover the back with another piece of fabric and add extra fabric along the top that can hold the wood or doll or hooks, however you decide you're going to hang it. In example one, I'm taking a piece of cotton the same size as my map. I will use white embroidery thread and a needle to hand sew the edges. First, I will snip off any straggling pieces. Then using the edge blanket stitch, I will stitch the map to the backing. In order to hang this, I can use clips and then hang the clips from nails on the wall. I can attach a thin piece of wood like a skewer and then add yarn, rope or wire to the ends. You can use a doll from the hardware store. Chopsticks will do or a metal curtain rod. I attach the wood rod with a few stitches to hold it in place and I attach yarn to hang it. Voila. For example two, the fabric for the backing was a bit larger and longer. I left several inches at the top so that I could sew a passageway to hold my hanging stick. Around the edges, the extra material makes for a nice border. First, I pinned and then sewed. I placed my map and I pinned it in place, and then I sewed it down with my sewing machine. You can hand sew too if you wish. Finally, I threaded my piece of driftwood through the passageway. You could put two nails in the wall and balance the wood on them, or you can attach wire, rope, yarn, or string, and hang the piece from one nail. Example three shows one last method, and that is to make loops. Here's a mixed media wall hanging I did and I simply made loops that I attach on top and then threaded my piece of wood through the loops. Oh there are loads more clever and unique ways to frame and hang your mapter pieces, which we will cover in some of the following classes. In order to make your 12.5 inch by 12.5 inch fabric map project from this class a bit larger, all you have to do is join two maps with a road. You can sew them together with black thread, and instantly your map is twice the size. You can build up top two. Please share your project whatever size, hanging style, and overall vibe in the project section of this site. No. 9. Exit Notes: Thanks for coming with me on this journey. And like all of my classes, I love to get feedback. I also really love to see your projects. So please please share your work in the project section of this class, or upload it to your Instagram account and tag me. The next class in this series from Scraps to Maps, will be the opposite of City Scenes. We head over to the country for farms, houses, and more. Follow me on Skillshare so you know when the next class is out.