Almost Ready To Fly...

Notice Bella in the background. She's always close when I'm stitching. 🖤

I spent hours at my needlework stand yesterday, and got quite a bit accomplished. I started by cutting and covering the antennae and legs. 

They were a lot less fun than I remembered. This task requires wrapping a single strand of silk thread (78" long) around a thin 6-1/4" length of wire. My fingers aren't as nimble as they were in 2019, which means it just took a bit longer than last time.

Once I completed the stitching on the butterfly's body, I attached the antennae to the head portion of the body. I realized at this point that the spare body from my red spotted purple is probably a bit small for the slightly larger monarch. I'll need to make a new one that fits.

Then I released the wing parts from the ground fabric and trimmed everything as close as I could without cutting into my needlework. That part of my task alone took a couple hours. 

When our class made our red spotted purple butterflies, Owen told us that we could take a dark marker to the trimmed edges if the light fabric showed. I used a fine tip Micron pen, and carefully moved around each wing part. Now the backs of the wings match the fronts. (I'll share photos of that in another post.)

So here's the list showing my progress, with one addition. I'll be attaching the wings today, and make the new body insert so I can prepare to close the fabric to form the body.

I'll be sliding into a new weekend by getting close to the finish line. I'll have new update photos soon.