stitched butterflies

I bought an Indian handmade light box from the wonderful Fair trade shop Shakti Man, a link to this later. It reminded me of the boxes used by butterfly collectors so I decided to make handstitched butterfly brooches to go in it. These were exhibited in my recent exhibition 2 Connect at the Hodgson loom Gallery. As 2 were sold I have replaced them with 2 new brooches to go in the upcoming show that starts on the 9th October at the Isle Gallery. The show is a joint one with 4 other very talented textile artists. These are all based on actual butterflies from around the world and are hand stitched with single thread cotton using a beading needle. The bodies are made from wrapped wool, they also have beaded eyes and metal thread antennae. As the stitching is done on calico and wire, the butterfly wings can be posed in different ways. The link for Shakti Man is shaktiman.co.uk