Fantasy Cartography Stitch-A-Long: A 5 Week Custom Map Making Experience
Five weeks. One completely original fantasy world. And more than $500 worth of workshops, tools, materials, and exclusive supplies to bring it to life. 🗺️🐉✨ Welcome to the biggest project of Makeshift Craft's First Fantasy Fall. Over five Monday nights, we're going to take you step-by-step through creating something truly extraordinary: your own completely original fantasy map, drawn, painted, embroidered, and embellished by YOU! Imagine the maps tucked inside the covers of your favorite fantasy novels with the winding mountain ranges, tiny villages, mysterious forests, dangerous seas, forgotten ruins, winding rivers, castles, covens, dragon territories, and places that exist only because someone imagined them. Now imagine creating one for a world that belongs entirely to you. 😒 And before you say it: You do NOT need to know how to draw. You do NOT need to know how to paint. You do NOT need to consider yourself “artistic.” We designed this entire Stitch-A-Long specifically with that person in mind. Every major element can be traced. Our massive 55-page Fantasy Cartography Guide is filled with resources, inspiration, examples, and traceable elements to help you construct your world one piece at a time. During our in-person sessions, we'll help you with composition, world building, creative decisions, color, stitches, embellishments, and all of those moments when you find yourself staring at your map thinking, “Okay...what goes here?” If you're comfortable with basic embroidery, we'll help you with the rest. And over five weeks, you're going to watch a blank piece of fabric slowly become an entire world. The Five-Week Adventure We'll meet every Monday at 6:00 PM from September 14 through October 12. Each class focuses on a completely different stage of creating your map, and new supplies specific to that stage will be distributed each week. Because we'll be building on the previous week's work and introducing new materials along the way, attending all five sessions is an important part of the Stitch-A-Long experience. There will be a bit of homework between each week as well to make sure you can stay on track! Week One: Build Your World 🗺️ Monday, September 14 It all starts with an empty map. We'll dive into fantasy cartography, world building, map planning, and composition as you begin designing your world. Where are the mountains? Where would settlements naturally develop? What's hiding in that forest? Where do your dragons live? What's happening on that suspicious little island? Using the Fantasy Map Making Guide and provided drawing tools, you'll begin constructing the bones of your world. And remember: every element can be traced. No drawing confidence required. Week Two: From Paper to Fabric ✏️ Monday, September 21 Your world is ready to become something real. We'll use the workshop's lightboxes to transfer your completed map onto fabric, refine your lines, adjust your composition, and add all those tiny details that make a fantasy map feel alive. This is where the project starts transforming from a sketch into a textile artwork. Week Three: Paint Your World 🎨 Monday, September 28 Now we add COLOR. We'll introduce very simple painting techniques designed specifically to enhance your map without covering up the beautiful line work you'll eventually embroider. Add depth to oceans. Wash forests in green. Give mountains dimension. Create dusty deserts, eerie magical regions, colorful coastlines, or whatever your particular world calls for. And once again: you do not need to be a painter. We'll walk you through approachable techniques and give you the tools to experiment without needing previous painting experience. Week Four: Stitch the Map 🪡 Monday, October 5 Now we get to the embroidery! We'll explore different stitches and techniques you can use throughout your map and talk about how embroidery can create texture, dimension, movement, and emphasis. Maybe your mountain ranges become dimensional. Maybe your rivers wind across the fabric in beautiful stitched lines. Maybe tiny French knots become flowers, villages, stars, or landmarks. This is where the map really begins jumping off the fabric. Week Five: Add the Magic ✨ Monday, October 12 No fantasy world is complete without a little magic. For our final session, we'll break out the metallic threads and seed beads to add those last extraordinary details to your map. Stars. Treasure. Magic. Dragon eggs. Glimmering water. Enchanted forests. Celestial details. Mysterious landmarks. We'll finish the evening by showcasing different ways to finish, mount, frame, and display your completed fantasy map so your new world can become a piece of art worthy of hanging on the wall. And We Really Did Think of EVERYTHING. This isn't just five workshops. Throughout the Stitch-A-Long, you'll receive a collection of tools, materials, references, and exclusive Fantasy Cartography supplies valued at more than $500. Your Stitch-A-Long experience includes: 🗺️ Five 2-hour In-Person Workshops - $250 value 📖 55-page Fantasy Map Making Guide - $35 value 📁 Special Edition Makeshift Fantasy Cartography Binder - $30 value 🪡 11" × 17" Q-Snap Frame - $30 value 🧵 11" × 17" Special Edition Grime Guard - $22 value 🎨 Set of 6 High-Quality Paint Brushes from Pigeon Letters - $50 value ✨ Special Edition Fantasy Cartography Needle Minder - $20 value 📍 Exclusive Makeshift Crafts Stitch-A-Long Fantasy Cartography Pin & Sticker - $15 value BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE: 🧵 ½ Yard of Cotton Linen Fabric 🪡 Three Tulip Needles ✨ Spool of Metallic Thread ✏️ Drawing Pencil 🖤 Mono Knock Eraser 🖊️ Black Mono Liner Pen 🖊️ Black Frixion Pen 📜 Tracing Paper 🎨 Paints & Fabric Medium ✨ Plus the supplies and materials we'll introduce throughout the five-week adventure Total retail value: OVER $500. And so many of those supplies, from your Q-Snap and brushes to your pens, needles, binder, guidebook, and needle minder, are yours to keep using long after Fantasy Fall is over. Perfect for: 🐉 Fantasy readers who have spent an unreasonable amount of time studying the maps at the beginning of their favorite books 🗺️ World-building nerds who have always secretly wanted to invent a kingdom of their own 🪡 Embroiderers ready to take their skills beyond following someone else's pattern 🎨 People who want to experiment with mixed-media textile art in a supportive environment ✨ Anyone who sees an incredible art project and immediately thinks, “I could never make that.” Yes. You can. We literally designed this so you can. 📚 Writers who want to visualize a world they've been building in their heads 🧙 People who simply want an excuse to spend five Monday nights disappearing into another world Basic embroidery experience is required. Drawing and painting experience are absolutely NOT required. What You'll Learn: Over the five weeks, you'll explore: 🗺️ Fantasy cartography and basic map composition 🏔️ World building and environmental storytelling ✏️ How to build complex artwork using traceable individual elements 💡 How to transfer artwork to fabric using a lightbox 🎨 Approachable fabric painting techniques 🪡 How to choose embroidery stitches based on texture and visual effect 🧵 Techniques for embroidering detailed illustrations ✨ How to work with metallic embroidery thread 💎 How to incorporate seed beads into embroidery 🖼️ Different options for finishing and displaying textile artwork 💭 And, maybe most importantly, how to take a giant creative idea and actually figure out how to make it The Vibe: You know that feeling when you open a fantasy novel, flip past the title page, see a giant illustrated map, and immediately stop to study it? We're spending five weeks making THAT. Except this time, there isn't an author who can tell you what's beyond the mountains. You decide. Maybe there's a witch coven hidden in the forest. Maybe the southern coast is home to a bustling port city. Maybe dragons nest in the mountains. Maybe there's an abandoned lighthouse, a field of enchanted flowers, a ruined castle, a dangerous sea, or an entire civilization whose story exists only in your head. We'll put on the fantasy playlists, spread our maps across the tables, compare worlds, ask each other increasingly specific questions about imaginary geography and lore, and spend five Monday nights slowly watching everyone's completely different universe appear on fabric. This isn't a workshop where everyone leaves with their version of the same project. And at the end of five weeks, when someone asks where you got that incredible embroidered fantasy map hanging on your wall? You get to say: “Oh, that? I made that.” 🗺️✨