Starting a new project is always great fun and I recently treated myself to a gorgeous kit called ‘Moth Queen’ designed by https://www.annalisamiddleton.com/shop. It is a goldwork kit described as ‘ not overly complicated and suitable for a patient beginner.’ I found the instructions comprehensive and very easy to follow and Annalisa has now made a series of videos to run alongside. All materials were of a very good quality, so easy to work with. The project took me four weekends to complete and I am very pleased with the results.
I have some experience with goldwork, but this still introduced me to a couple of new techniques such as sewing over a silk background and using leathers over small areas.
As always with goldwork, the initial stages (and often most time consuming) are concerned with building up the padded base layer. The silk backgrounds were then applied over the padded wings and outlined with Japanese threads.
Two different coloured silks were used to cover the first and second set of wings. Then the body padding was added. A pattern was drawn over the silk and this was covered with Japanese threads and the areas filled in with gold chipping.
Once the patterns on the top wings had been filled I moved on to the body, applying leather to the head and thorax.
The bottom patterning on the wings was created by stretching leather over more padding. Then the ‘crown’, antennae and legs were added.
And here is the finished Moth Queen. I was really pleased with the results and all I have to do now is decide whether to frame her or make her into a very eye-catching patch!
Thanks for popping in…
Happy Stitching!
