Airy Spirits ~ Textile Art

Continuing with my new hobby love ~ a little more Textile Art, only this time, something with wings.

During the lock-down, due to Covid 19/Coronavirus, my brain got busy and spoke to my fingers, which began conjuring up butterflies. Although textile butterflies aren’t the easiest thing I’ve ever made, they’re mighty enjoyable, and all so precious when I’ve finished them. They all seem to have their own personalities, and they make me smile for one reason or another.

The Nectar Collector

Each one I’ve made is in a different fabric, and this particular one, called: The Nectar Collector; was made from Vintage Embroidered Fabric, which I tea stained then added a little ink to give it a warm peachy effect to the fabric itself

Why is this butterfly called: The Nectar Collector? Ah, well that’s an easy one to answer….

Butterflies ‘eat’ nectar and do so by the use of their ‘tongue’ – they have a long, curled proboscis, which is like a soft drinking straw, which uncoils to sip liquid food, and then coils up again into a spiral when the butterfly isn’t feeding.

But … what happens to all the nectar which the butterflies can’t reach, or miss because they don’t notice it?

Well, *I’m reliably informed by the Fairies which live in Cobweb Wood*, that there are special butterflies whose job it is to go around foraging for all the left over nectar which can be found on flowers, and collect it in special bottles. They then take it back to ‘Nectar Central’, where each of the bottles of nectar are dated, stored on shelves and saved for use on days when it’s too cold to go out or too windy, too blustery or those rainy days when the weather isn’t suitable for delicate Butterfly wings.

*Once all this was explained to me* it totally made sense, as I’m sure it does to you too, now that I’ve explained it to you!

The underside of a Butterflys wings are just as important as the tops, but for a totally different reason. The underside of a butterfly wing is actually called ‘The Ventral Side’. This ventral (under) side is more often than not, used for camouflage so that it can avoid being dinner for some passing bird or frog.

And the importance of the Ventral Side of the wings was important to me too. After all … I don’t want some passing frog to eat the Nectar Collector! So it clearly states on the underside of it’s wings that this butterfly isn’t for chomping on – for this is a Cobwebs Butterfly!

The tops of butterfly wings are used for signalling to another butterfly that the butterfly rather likes them and would like to marry them. (*That’s how it was explained to me, anyhow*).

Before this particular butterfly takes flight and leaves me, when it’s found it’s forever home, there will be a very tiny button sewn to the underside – of a particular colour and shape, which will have a special meaning. An explanation of the meaning of that button, will be sent along with him, so that he can be treasured for the treasure he actually is.

Now before I sign off …

I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU – to all who replied and commented on my last post [<— clickable link] and who helped me – because I was near to being a big melted down mess on the floor, and BIG THANKS to those who gave me hints, tips and guidance on how to use the new block editor that WordPress have forced upon us.

As you can see, with your help, I have made a post! [a roar of cheers can be heard from all over the land].

I can’t say that I like the new editor, because I don’t. I REALLY don’t.

  • It has no spellcheck;
  • No ‘update’ button;
  • It won’t colour selected words in a paragraphbut simply colours all the words in that paragraph. (Unless you know a trick to that … and if you do, please share it with me);
  • It has pop up boxes which appear out of nowhere and block the view of what you want to seewhich I’m sure are meant to be helpful, when the time is right – but they’re a darn nuisance!;
  • Things are hidden behind unknown ‘terms’ and names;
  • Silly symbols which mean diddly squat to regular, not unintelligent users!;
  • Everything about it is so darn tiresome and seems to need an abundance of clicks to do the simplest thing
  • even changing the colour of the words isn’t the one click it used to be!

The new system is clunky, silly, old fashioned in many ways, behind the times and boringly, stupidly long winded.

It truthfully feels like the coding has been written by a junior member of staff instead of someone who knows what she/he is actually doing. It’s taken me a lot longer than I would normally have spent building a post – but . . . at least I now have a post, after lots of help from other WordPress users.

My sincere thanks to you all – for without you, I truthfully would have thrown the towel in and given up. Bless each and every one of you.

Thank you so much for coming today and sharing a coffee and some time with me, while I introduced you to the Nectar Collector – who is the first of my Airy Spirits. I love seeing you here, and love chatting with you all. So please feel welcome to leave a comment. It doesn’t have to be a huge comment, just say hello – because it’s always so nice to know who I’m chatting with.

And …. before I sign off, there HAS to be some Monday jokes:-

Q:- Where are average things manufactured?

A:- The satisfactory.

~~~ ❤ ~~~

Q:- What does Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack?

A:- The best of thymes, the worst of thymes.

~~~ ❤ ~~~

Q:- What do you call an apology written in dots and dashes?

A:- Re-Morse code.

~~~ ❤ ~~~

Q:- What do you call a rooster staring at a pile of lettuce?

A:- A chicken sees a salad.

~~~ ❤ ~~~

Just before I sign off … although I’ve been commenting on blogs over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been told by various bloggers that they’ve found my comments in their spam folders – so … please check your spam folders, as a comment or two might just be hiding there.

Have a wonderful Monday, and a truly blessed week. Sending love and squidges through the ether to you ….

* the ASTERISK * marked * statements [above] may or may not be entirely, exactly d’ twufe, d’ whole twufe and nuffin but d’ twufe. But I’m absolutely certain dere is some sort of twufe.

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Is it Time for Tea?

About two weeks ago I went into my local Charity store to have a look around and see if there was anything I needed which I didn’t know I needed until I saw *it*. (what ever *it* might be).

Amongst the china were some little cups and saucers which someone had made into pin cushions. “One of those would be great to replace my current pin cushion, because the one I’ve got has really had its day!”  I said to Mr. Cobs.  So I duly bought said pin cushion and took it home.

The following day I found that this ‘pin cushion’ didn’t want to the job it was supposed to do at all.  The felt which the maker had used as the ‘cover’ was that thick childrens felt – and it just didn’t want to accept that it’s job was to allow pins through it.  After a week of trying to jiggle (force) pins into it, I was about to throw the whole thing in the bin in frustration,  but something told me I should try removing the red velvet ribbon around the rim of the teacup, and the white felt – along with whatever was inside that felt,   and, if the cup was still in an OK condition, perhaps I could re-make the pin cushion.  So I did.  And it was.  So I did!

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Cleaned up nicely!

I cleaned up the glue and bits of velvet threads stuck to the cup by using an emery board, then gave it a wipe.  I then went and had a bit of a look through my bits of fabric box.  I found some bits of soft denim fabric from some old striped jeans I had and laid it flat on my desk and with a chalk pencil I drew around the saucer (and added about half an inch, just to be sure).  I then did a running stitch all around the circle of denim, and left a long thread at the end – but didn’t knot or over-sew the end as I wanted to be able to draw that circle together.

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The cup itself (without the saucer) is just a shade under 6cm tall – which is around 2.25 inches.  Such a tiny little cup.

Then using some foam (from an unused sponge),  which I’d cut to shape (so that I could see that it fitted into the cup as I wanted it to do), and then wrapped a little toy stuffing (or cushion pad inner stuffing) around the outside of the sponge, to give it a bit of a filler to make it more ’rounded’ in shape.

I sat this wrapped sponge onto the middle of the circle of fabric and began to pull the loose threads, which in turn began to gather up around the foam.  This is a part that you have to do carefully, as you want to make sure that all the foam and stuffing are in the exact places you need it to be, and that it’s all encased inside that fabric.

After this, I re-threaded the needle with those threads and stitched the gathered up denim closed, so that it wouldn’t come undone.

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The width of the saucer is roughly 10.3cm – which is around 4 inches.

I tested it in the cup to make sure I’d got it just right, then, using Pinflair Glue Gel in a syringe, I squeezed out a thin line of Glue Gel all around  (about an inch down)  the inside of the top of the cup, then carefully placed the denim ‘parcel’ into the cup,  and once happy, I gave a gentle press downwards, to make sure that the fabric actually was at the bottom of the cup, and that it had touched the glue gel, all the way around and so would stick & be held in place.

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Then it was simply a case of decorating around the edge.  I chose some Jumbo Ric-Rac and some tiny dollshouse  Pom-Pom Trim in the same shade of pink as the Ric-Rac,  and hand stitched them around the edge,  to finish it all off.

This was SO easy to make that I think even Little Cobs (grandson) could manage this one.  And the best thing about this?   From start (removing the old ‘pin cushion’), to finish ….  the whole thing took me about 30 minutes!  One – Half an Hour craft project!

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Handle to the left ….

Oh!  Hang on….  NO!!!  The  BEST  THING  about  this  is  . . .   IT NOW TAKES PINS It’s now a really real Pin Cushion!

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. . .  and handle to the right!  …   A view from above, so that you’ve ‘seen’ all the way around it, in case you want to make one for yourself … or for someone else.

If you do decide to make one of these for yourself....  the day before you actually make it, glue the cup to the saucer with some strong glue.  Not crafters glue, or PVA.  Use something which is suitable for china.

If you have Pinflair Glue Gel, I’d guess that would do a great job – but remember to put enough glue on (which ever glue you use), because there’s a little rim around the bottom of a cup (normally), which will make the base of the cup stand proud from the saucer – so you need to put enough glue so that it makes a good grab onto the saucer and the cup.

And that’s all there is to it!

This was such an easy make that I wasn’t going to post about it.  I felt like a bit of a fake because I hadn’t sweat blood and tears over it.  But then I thought that maybe there might be someone who needed a pin cushion and so could make something like this in their spare time.  

Happy Thursday all.  Sending squidges to you, from me!

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