I've now attached the luna moth and the other night moth to our night scene. I need at least one more critter here, and a couple more for the crocheted daytime scene one, since all the critters I made have migrated to the other two locations. I'm just a helpless prawn in the face of this tide...
As you see, I refrained from stitching a body for the luna moth, since I'm making a suggestion of a moth, rather than a botanically exact representation, which would be a bit too literal for the purpose of this piece. I did similarly with the blue butterfly on the daytime scene, and she looks light and interesting, so I continue to like that decision.
This is the current state of play of the piece I'm working on. To wit, the wing parts of the luna moth which I'm not doing in natural colors, but I am hewing to the natural forms.
These are wired, stitched down around the drawn design, then buttonhole stitched, some sparkly ribbon cut to fit and stitched in as I go. You'll see the last segment, drawn but no wire yet, and that will approximate the other tail section when all's said and done. You can't quite tell here how sparkly the base ribbon is, catches the light at every move.
The muslin it's stitched on, natural unbleached, is only the support for these pieces. When they're stitched, I'll cut around the wires -- this is stumpwork -- and remove them to attach them to their permanent support, using the wires at the back to help secure them. Then I'll stitch a body for the moth.
There's an element of faith that enters in at this point, where this is one fragment of many fragments of a piece full of ideas that I hope will come together as hoped and even work. So this is where we are. Just as an index of size, the hoop is about 4" diameter.
Wired with fine wire taken out of the ribbon, didn't have the necessary beading wire, wire stitched down with silk and gold threads, the inner parts couched with silk, then floss split stitched on the tail section. All the raw materials, muslin, silk thread, couching thread, floss, hoop, even needles, are donated by kind people wanting to see work like this happen.
Fortunate, really since I'm constitutionally incapable of deliberately buying items for any artform. It's all recycling to me.
Two parts going on at once: in the kitchen, mulberry paper over tiles, molded with water, drying and ready to be installed somewhere on the crocheted foliage.
And in the living room, while I listen to an audiobook, the beginnings of a luna moth, with help from Jane Nicholas' wonderful new embroidery book about stumpwork butterflies and moths.
It arrived yesterday and I whipped through it in search of a luna moth.
What you see here are the forewings, wired and to be stitched much more, around the edges, and the "eyes" to be stitched. This is a wired ribbon, wire removed, which I used to cut out the forewings, and will use for the hind wings, too, needed to do the forewings in order to see if it worked.
I secured them in place on the muslin with gold silk thread, then applied the wire, taken from the edge of the ribbon, just right for the purpose, stitched down again. This is the engineering part of it.
The decorative stitching will hide all these underpinnings. Then once the hind wings are done, too, all will be cut out and transferred to a different backing, to be part of the artwork. Along with other butterflies and moths, I think. I plan on a lot of goldwork for these insects, rather than the natural colors.
And, for a little example of how life imitates art, go here
