Collaborative Quilting

A longtime friend and I are collaborating on a series of quilts. (It will probably be two series but that's another story.)   He's a mapmaker and we want a quilt (or two or three or...) that is a fair representation of topo and drainage maps--and whatever other sort of map we decide we like. 

However, we (well, I think it's "we") also want to so at least a couple quilts that are more abstract or artistic renditions of maps.

As we were talking about earlier this week, taking a look at some maps and images, it was fun to ask each other questions about our part in it, how best to represent features and which ones we wanted to include in the quilts.   I found myself saying more than once, while I was asking questions  "I guess that's why you're a mapmaker and I'm a quilter!  Trust me, the more I am learning about mapmaking the more I'm knowing how much I DON'T know about mapmaking! 

Of course, being a quilter, I had to go fabric shopping and take him along to make sure I was getting correct color schemes.   Note that we are also working on a plan to make some geology-inspired quilts, too.

Did you recognize that as a rationalization for the all the fabric you see here, from our shopping?  I was afraid to add up the yardage.

I've started working on a sample/practice piece in the artistic/abstract vein, and that is where I'm learning how little I know about mapmaking, as I'm trying to draft some contour lines onto fabric. I understand the concept  of contour lines and what they represent but I confess that when faced with drawing them on a piece of patterned fabric, well, I have some questions for my mapmaking friend.

Stay tuned.   I, for one, as interested in how this is all going to turn out!!