Pupa

The pupa. Of course we don't actually see the pupa in this tapestry - that honour goes to the first one published on this blog. This is an exercise in lettering - and I am not happy with my 'a'. Of course it was woven first, being at the bottom but I'm leaving it as it's not wrong, just squashed. Otherwise this tapestry was fun and quick to weave.

Golden wings

The moth's wings - this is a female of the species - which means it has the distinctive golden hind wing that attracts the male as she sits on the ground, glowing, waiting for her moth in shining 'amour' (had to put quotation marks in case people think it's a spelling mistake). For this tapestry, I wove in some metallic thread, which you can see in the detail - for extra glow!

Sun, but does it shine?

Not sure what happened here. I tried to get the two images side-by-side, but they didn't work out. Not to worry. I had real fun weaving this panel because I started blending the material strips in the background. This was done for no other reason than I was trying to follow the shading of my original painting. It's not accurate, but it follows the light and shade patterns and was a welcome relief after keeping most of my other backgrounds fairly straight. Whether it works is debatable. I want the attention on the moth design, not the background, so in this instance I may have failed. The word 'sun' should have been literally glowing, but it's not. I think the photographs are a bit dull - in reality, it's a nice piece of work, even though the areas of woollen weft lack the dominance they should have.

Winging it

Yes, I was winging it. These are the pics that should have come out on one or two of my previous blogs. Here we have a mix of the then Victorian Tapestry Workshop yarns, a lovely paisley printed material that emanates colour but (sadly) without the design - I do love paisley. Plus there is more bulky soumak - I used six strands of two-ply as I wanted the ridges for more texture.

The Silken Cocoon

Finally this image appears. This is the larvae stage of the Golden Sun Moth. It lives underground in a 'silken' cocoon and it feed on the roots of the Wallaby Grass. Here I've used soumak stitching for the roots. The material used for the ground is a silk rayon which I used in a dress I made for myself in the 1970s . . . what goes around!

And some more

Five more pics of my work - at last you can see that I have been producing!

More pics

Having just been successful in uploading one more picture, I'll try some more.