More stumpwork and here you see one butterfly wing bits all done, on the lines of a luna moth in shape, not in color, and the start of a different sort of butterfly, long and short stitch, blending one ply of floss then one ply of metallic blue. This is another authentic butterfly shape but I was dying to use this color combo.
You know how, when you're in the middle of creating something, poem, artwork, cooking something, anything like that, you suddenly realize, oh, this is what I've been meaning to do for years. It must have been flitting about all that time and now it's landed on my work? that's how I suddenly felt with the luna moth, and now with the blending of colors on the iridescent blue one. Just, everything feels right, right now.
And the third item is a piece of mulberry paper, one I'd molded over a bee form, and here you see it stitched onto muslin, carefully preserving the molded very fragile shape, not easy, that, and then trapunto work on the body. I used wisps of cotton roving, beautiful silky stuff I've had for a while. This one is an experiment, I'll see how it works once I do a few similar ones.
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
