Trying collage as a design technique

The online tapestry group that I belong to has a new theme for the 2015 exhibition. My Place. I want to try a new, less literal, design but have found myself using photos once again. I downloaded a couple of images from 123RF and also had a look at some books of roadmaps and Google Maps. Once again, I found myself doing some rather literal designing.

Then I picked up a book I bought a while ago, art quilt maps. It is uses collage (of fabric) in the design process, and the actual making, and I loved many of the quilts in the book.

I remembered our weekend at Tarndie where I used collage for my designing, so decided to try that process again. I haven't done collage much. I found it quite freeing in that little tapestry and hope it will be so again. So the elements have given me clues to follow - collage!

I used thrums for the Tarndie tapestry and might try that again, if I have suitable colours. If not, I will make up the colours I need using what other yarns I already have.

I tried doing some curved pieces for the part of the design that is the curving creek and park and I just cut straighter pieces for the built-up area. 

We have been doing work on line in our Design for Stitch course, the book reminded me of this also. I made a little template of the streets and roads, cut them out, then used oil pastel to rough them in. 

Here is the design so far. I haven't thought too much about how I will weave it, I will tackle that problem tomorrow, maybe.  It isn't all that big, about 20cm wide. I am going to use this design as my cartoon but only loosely - I will try to make decisions as I go, I think I find that more freeing. Seeing that the collage is not much like my original image, it won't matter that much. I hope.