Thursday 9 July 2015

More moths


The white moth represents the basic pattern I have devised. I wanted to make a really simple pattern, so have whittled it down to seven pieces (the two eyes and one thread for the antennae are included). The aim was to dispense with areas which would be far too time consuming i.e the legs, leaving me with the freedom to play with fabrics and stitching to create a play of colour, contrast and texture.

The mousy brown moth is the first go at making a finished moth. I am not overly keen on machine edging in general, not sure why, but as I am creating more moths I can vary the colour and add small hand-stitched accents that liven up the flat edges. The aim is to keep it simple, so I have to make sure the urge to embellish doesn't take over. I have a large moth pattern (with legs!) in development, where, in the future I can go crazy on the details.

The brown moth presents an interesting dillema in the creative thought process. One of the wonderful things about moths here in the UK is their modest plumage. We have many hundreds of 'little brown moths', it's not until you zoom in on them the amazing variations become apparent. Just making brown moths would suit me, but I'm lucky enough to have a large stash of upholstery fabric samples. This stash has been part of the inspiration for producing the pattern in the first place, I also have to justify hanging onto all this fabric!. So, I'm trying to do both, subtle moths and moths with eye-catching colour combinations. More pictures to follow soon....



1 comment:

ELINtm said...

Thank you Delia. Lovely to hear from you again! I hope all is well with you.

Yes, I'm starting to enjoy blogging again. I used to think I needed amazing photos and text but actually what I enjoy myself is getting a window into the process of hand-making. It still seems very mysterious to me, being creative...it really helps to try and describe what thoughts are bubbling away parallel with making things.