An artist has decided to give all the proceeds from her art exhibition to a St Albans street café and support service.

Herts Advertiser: St Albans artist Liz Holliday is giving all the funds raised from her personalised, stitched local maps to Centre 33, Spicer Street. Picture: Liz HollidaySt Albans artist Liz Holliday is giving all the funds raised from her personalised, stitched local maps to Centre 33, Spicer Street. Picture: Liz Holliday (Image: Archant)

Textile artist Liz Holliday, who lives in the city, has depicted St Albans in a series of 25 embroidered maps, each representing a small area of the city and accompanied by a brief text.

To create the maps, Liz embroidered the contours of the land, the River Ver, main roads, railways, farmland and historical and present-day industrial sites.

She worked from ordinance survey 1:25,000 maps, which had residential properties clearly marked, and this gave her the idea that at the end of the exhibition she could personalise her work for local people by stitching a small house to show where they live. The project took several months to create and she estimates that each map took a day to stitch.

Liz has decided to donate the proceeds from her forthcoming exhibition at St Albans Museum + Gallery to Centre 33, a volunteer-run facility in Spicer Street which offers free breakfast and evening meals to homeless or vulnerable people.

She said: "I found it a fascinating project and I hope local people will be similarly intrigued as so many of them will live in the areas covered by the maps.

"To personalise them I can depict a buyer's house or business and include a small amount of text, perhaps indicating when a family moved in.

"The maps are one-off creations that are close to my heart, and will, I hope, find a similar place in the hearts of people who buy them."

Her work appears as part of the Eastern Region Textile Forum exhibition - The Making of a Market Town - which is running at St Albans Museum + Gallery until November 3.

All of the money Liz raises from this project will go to Centre 33 which is used by people who rely on it for food, showers and sometimes clothing.

Visitors come from a variety of backgrounds: some are rough-sleepers, some are people living in temporary accommodation, and others are just people just looking for a place to be sociable.

If you are interested in having a personalised and framed map for a donation to Centre 33 of £60 contact Liz at liz@lizinstitches.co.uk or www.lizinstitches.co.uk