Old Discoveries: Maps

Follow the creation of this piece, Navigating a Broken World, featured at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. for the exhibition, "Stories of Migration" in 2016.

I began by plotting out the triangles and hand stitching them. Then I continued by hand-embroidering all of the continents and their features. The brown spots are like little stars and the red spots are knots.

After embroidering all the land masses, I painstakingly machine quilted all of the oceans using my sewing machine. I rigged a special hanger from the ceiling using a hook and bungy cord. This helped support the massive weight, making it much easier to fluently move the quilt without too much strain.

Here it is flat, all quilting completed.

Now the piece is quilted, but before cutting it out of the surrounding material, I wanted to test that it would actually work out. Therefore I pinned along the lines to see the quilt begin to take shape.

Once cut out, I created further support by sewing together a thick felt object with the same dimensions. Then I hand-stitched the piece to this felt.

I still wasn't sure ultimately what form I wanted, circular or opened up and spread out. Here I've tested it as a globe.

If you're interested in purchasing this work, visit Roberta and Bob Rogers Gallery at www.rbrg.org