First Place, Professional Original

I have a passion for maps, and have already designed a map of my home state, Michigan, based on the counties which compose it. I suppose it was inevitable that eventually I would seek to stitch a map of our whole country.

American Mosaic is a sampler of canvaswork stitches depicting the map of the United States. Each state has its own stitch, and each has its own color. The colors were chosen to range across the map from east to west, changing in hue bit by bit until the journey is completed across the spectrum. The stitches were chosen with size and shape of the state in mind, so that small states are rendered in smaller stitches, and the giant western states in larger stitches. Some of the stitches are old familiar ones you probably learned in a beginners’ class, but others have only recently been developed, and may challenge one’s stitching ability. It was fun to find the appropriate stitch for each state.

When I got to Hawaii I just couldn’t decide, but there were favorite stitches that actually did not lend themselves to filling a shape (any shape), so there I used them for the various islands of our most southern state. Even though the shapes of the islands are not truly accurate one can still identify this grouping as Hawaii.

A bit of silver thread was added to indicate the oceans and lakes which border our country, and here and there you will see a suggestion of a river. For the lettering I went back and borrowed some of the colors from various states, and once again created a spectrum, as I spelled out United States of America.

American Mosaic was less a challenge to develop, and more just plain fun.