Monday 13 July 2015

Ready to fly.

                                          Dark brown iridescent upholstery fabrics, linen, polyfibre filling, glass beads. brooch back.

I'm near to completing about 12 of these moths in various colours. I have yet to find a good way of making the antennae, button thread has the right thickness but even a touch of wax doesn't make them positionable.  I am going to try watered down pva and a couple of other things to see if I can make them perkier. Any suggestions for a fix would be much appreciated :)

                                           Hand painted linen, Joel Dewberry fabric, polyfibre filling, glass beads. brooch back.


I've reached a point where I'm starting to use fabric paint and adding more hand-stitching, the urge to embellish is overwhelming! This means I have to take a different tack from now on. I have just purchased some long entomology pins, the next batch of moths will be more elaborate but constructed specifically for wall display. I'll work to a standard Ikea box frame size which will hold two of these small moths or one larger. It means, I don't have to hold back when it comes to the details.

                                      Vintage Laura Ashley fabric, Joel Dewberry fabric, polyfibre filling, glass beads. brooch back.
 
All the 12 completed moths will be available to purchase next week in my Etsy shop on Monday 20th at 2pm. They will be listed at a special price in order to encourage their successful flight. 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/elinart

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, these are gorgeous!! Would you consider selling the moth pattern!?

ELINtm said...

Thank you, Anon! When I have time I would love to make these available as a pattern.

It's not something I would sell, probably would prefer to offer it free on the blog. The problem is getting the time to work out how to do it! Plus, take all the photos involved...not my favourite part of the process I have to admit. One day, I'll do it. I'm also planning a publication, but that is also firmly on the back burner, for the moment!

ELINtm said...

Thank you for your kind words, Delia!

faunhaert said...

if you take 26/24 gauge wire
telephone wire works too.
and fold in half
then put a needle too in the fold
and spin it you get a locate twisted wire
that looks pretty nice.
basically the more you twist or work wire the stiffer it will get.
in silver working
to make it flexible again
people heat it in a torch and quench it water.

florist's tape can be spun on to make it thicker-
basically its waxed crepe paper and warming it with your fingers
and pulling it makes it very smooth- the steeper the angle you put it on
the thinker it gets.

for legs a fine pipe cleaner folded over (just enough for a foot)
over a end of yarn/embroidery floss or crochet cotton,
spent the pipe cleaner from that end down to the end..
you can vary how tightly to let some pip cleaner poke out
or disappear , secure the end with a half hitch or fly knot .

"https://flic.kr/p/rVmm1f" florist tape on telephone wire.