Butterflies

This is the back of the butterfly where the cording was stitched
in place. I had to tack temporarily then sort of whip stitch at the back so that the stitchings
didnt show at the front of the embroidery. Im glad I used two layer of fabric here for the
butterfly embroidery.

The front of the embroidered butterfly, noticed I stitched two sequins and that round the
edges of the butterfly I decided to use black fabric paint. The first colour was brown, I didnt notice til daylight it was brown, but thankfully I went over the edges with some black and the delicate stamens. Im hoping to stick some beads at the end of the stamens here, fingers crossed.

Several hours of designing, sketching, keeping warm working with the lightbox but im pleased with the result, now its time to draw on fabric, tack and stitch.

I'm still keeping busy, especially with the postcard swap project. This is working out much grander but its what makes it exciting and that zest to make you want to get on with it rather to shove the idea to the back of the head and not get on with it. The last few days have been grey weather wise.
With my MS there has been a few good hours then a few bad couple of hours where Ive just had to go to bed and put my legs up, rest, and pick up a good book. On the Sunday I worked a little bit more on the butterfly. I stitched two tiny sequins onto the butterfly wings and stitched the cording at the back of the butterfly to give it a bit more stability. I decided to stuff the middle of the butterfly at the back with some soft wool that i had found under my bed, I was delighted with this. Stuffing the wool in a tiny snipped hole was fiddly but this was my very first attempt at the trap unto idea, just a fiddly little one, but you have to try these things out don't you.
My fella Jim was shouting and cursing at the TV especially with the football match between Germany and England. Thank goodness for needle and thread, thank goodness that we can go into our own little world with our stitchings, projects, ideas. The times my mind flies as if on a magic carpet to a quilting shop to browse at the fabrics, to buy them with no cash restrictions what so ever. The endless supply of my favourite Stef Francis threads that keep popping through the door......... (dream on eh), but my purse is dry at the moment and I have to make do with what I have got. As the card theme is to choose just two colours, I decided to pick black and white. The black cotton I fell in love with as I managed to get this out of Jim's mum's sewing box as Jim's dad said he had no use of the items now. The cotton cording was well over fifty years old and such fantastic quality, wound on a wooden reel, you don't see anything like that nowadays. So this is what I stitched the butterfly with.
I designed the embroidery area for the butterfly to be stitched onto to and designed a quilted envelope idea, this may work out, may not, but keep watching this blog to see how I progress.
My lightbox came in handy which Ive had for twenty years, it was handmade by a signmaker, this has been my best friend time and time again.
Well now Ive got to trace the design of the envelope onto the material, find some wadding, tack then my favourite fun part to hand quilt. Hope you are all having some great creativity time , keep watching.