More Anatomical embroidery patterns: a moth and a butterfly

I’ve had a rough idea of a moth on the backburner for a few years now – it lends itself really well to surface embroidery stitches and I knew from the start that the thorax had to be fluffy because of their textured, powdery bodies and wings. It gave me a good starting point for the rest of the textured stitching detail on the wings and feelers.

Similarly, I’ve wanted to use this collection of muted, almost antique-looking thread colours in a design for a while now, and they sprang to mind as soon as I started working on the moth. They feel well-suited to the anatomical nature of the design.

The moth was a natural fit with my small collection of existing Anatomical designs and so I though I should add a butterfly to the range at the same time – a duo of winged creatures.

The Brenton Blue butterfly from Knysna along South Africa’s southern coast inspired my thread colour choices and I experienced a small thrill of satisfaction when my idea for stitching the black and white edges of the wings worked out as I’d envisioned on the first try (this definitely isn’t always the case).

There are a nice variety of stitches in both designs and you can see how to do them all in either my Stitch Directory or on my Stitches board on Pinterest.

The two new patterns – as well as my three other Anatomical designs – are available in my online shop on Etsy and Craftsy as instant PDF downloads.