Meredith Mansfield, Author

At least around here, you never do know what you’ll find when you look in places you haven’t looked in a while. I’ve been searching for some craft materials I know I have. I actually organized my craft supplies (most of them) last year. No joy. I finally broke down and bought some more–which probably guarantees that I’ll find the stuff I already had soon.

But in my search, I turned up some things I don’t even remember. Like this:

Not the best picture, I know. (It’s hard to get a decent photo of an unfinished piece of embroidery, especially really large or long ones. This is about 30 inches long.) But if you compare that to this:

You’ll see that the first is an embroidered version of a much earlier rendering of the map for the world of the Dual Magics series.

Actually, that first map is for the first “novel” I ever wrote–way back in college. (Yes, some form of this story–or, at least, this world–has been bouncing around in my head that long.) That original story, however, took place a few hundred years into the future of the Dual Magics story–and involved another group of people living farther north, as you can see. And really wouldn’t fit into the current cannon.

I don’t even remember this piece of embroidery. It’s not quite finished, either. There’s a little bit of work left on the southern mountains. Maybe I decided I didn’t like it. Or put it aside to work on something else. Possibly, it was meant as a companion for this:

which depicts elements of that same story I wrote back in college.