Monday 14 April 2014

Wasp

A while ago I signed up for a Phat Quarter swap... erm quite a while ago actually, I had to contact my partner (the very cool Mr X himself) and ask for extra time because I was making something odd that I had no idea how to make.
Behold the 'sort of' stumpwork stiletto wasp:








The main part of the body is embroidered in floss, the face is fake leather appliqued onto kid leather, the legs are wire and the wings are tracing paper stitched on gauze with paper covered wire stitched on for the veins. It is huge because stiletto wasps are a mythical beast from the Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies - it's a great book, the second in a series (the first The Lies of Locke Lamora is even better)- I used a description of the wasp in the book to design my version.
 I was pretty pleased how it turned out - not bad for a first attempt at something like this. It was very challenging, as I was making it up as I went along. I had to make the wings twice as my first set didn't have the tracing paper and were awful- they needed something to give shape to the gauze.
Next on my embroidered object list is either a fish or something like an urchin or starfish (think french knots and plenty of em) whaddya think?