Book Review – Making Art From Maps

Making Art From Maps by Jill K. Berry $14.99

I love this BOOK! The only problem is I don’t have any maps, not even old ones. I think we have Google maps to blame for that. I am looking forward to grabbing some maps from garage sales and making something fun. I once made a bag like this one Playing Cards Purse using pages from an old atlas. This would have been around 20 years ago. I guess that makes me pretty cool doesn’t it ! You have to check out this book and be sure to add it to your Crafting Bookshelf.

Making Art From Maps : From origami to paper cutting and decoupage, love of paper crafting has soared, and with it the variety of paper types used by artists. Among these are maps – an apt choice for any crafter: they’re easy to find, often free, meant to be folded, and their colorful surfaces add an allure of travel to every project.Making Art from Maps is equal parts inspiration and fun. Jill K. Berry, author of Map Art Lab returns, bringing her expertise in maps and her wide-ranging skills as an artist with her.
With her cartographic connections, she takes you on a gallery tour, introducing you to the work of some of the most exciting artists creating with maps today. Designer interviews are accompanied by 25 accessible how-to projects of her own design that teach many of the techniques used by the gallery artists.

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Circular knitting machines are a lot of fun, and one of the best ways I have found to use them is to make seasonal decor and toys. I guess that’s because these are the kinds of projects that I don’t want to spend a ton of time on but still want to make from time to time.

That’s not to say that knitting machine projects can’t be detailed and time consuming. And really the great ones are those that take the time to add fun details to make the finished project that much more interesting.

Like these adorable dinosaurs from Three Magic Sheep Co. The pattern includes instructions for a triceratops and a stegosaurus. Here they’re shown in coordinating candy colors, which I love, but you can of course make yours in any color you like.

The larger pieces of the body and legs are worked on either a 46 or 48 pin machine, while the smaller parts are worked on a 22-pin machine. I don’t know if a lot of people have both but the 22 pin machines are so inexpensive it’s nice to have both for projects like this. I’m not sure what she used for the triceratops horns, but in customer pictures on the listing it shows people have made them with both knitting and crochet so you can do that, too, instead of buying horns to use.

The details on these are really cute (you will want to buy safety eyes, or you can embroider eyes on if you’d rather) and customers note it takes longer to sew the pieces together than it does to crank them.

This looks like a fun pair of patterns to make for a dinosaur loving kiddo (or adult!) in your life. You can check out the pattern and all the customer comments and photos at Three Magic Sheep Co. on Etsy.

[Photo: Three Magic Sheep Co.]

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Have you read?