Friend Of Twelve by Twelve - Maps

The Map On Page Nine.

12 by 20 inches.  Hand painted fabric and paper, discharged commercial cottons and commercially printed fabric.

This came together, with difficulty, at the last moment, yesterday.  I couldn't come up with a good plan (map) and we all know that without a good map--we get lost or confused.  I find maps to be helpful but confusing.  All the words, colors and sections.  What part should I be paying attention to, how do I get to my destination? ( Is it the orange spot?)

In the end, I just walked into the workspace, looked at the last piece (I intend for the five for 2012 to all be cohesive so they can be exhibited together), selected fabrics from the pile from the last piece and cut a piece of backing felt the correct size (not!) and set to work "painting" with blobs of fabric instead of paints.  Most of these fabrics are self painted and or bleach discharged.  Two fabrics are commercial.  One (the one with writing) was cut off a piece made many years ago and never quite finished.  Are any of mine actually finished?

And it was designed upside down.  Damned if it didn't look more interesting this way UP.  I had to do some last minute fiddling to get the piece to be 12 by 20.  Next time, I am going with my long time practice of making the felt backing 13 by 21.

I felt, last night as I was removing stitches that didn't help move the design and having second thoughts about the whole thing--why, not just skip the Maps.  But this morning I saw what some of the other 12's had done and now mine seems okay.