The Moth-er of All Ideas

Through random instagram browsing I happened to stumble across a few artists who make the most amazing moths and butterflies out of all sorts of crafting materials, like antique linens or embroidery.

I couldn't help but be inspired, so I got my butt over to Ravelry to see about making a mothy friend of my own. Surely there would be some patterns already done up that I could just tweak a little bit?

Nope.

Nothing.

Well, not anything semi-realistic at least. And that's really what I wanted. Not some cartoonish version.

So...

You already know what I did. I made my own damn pattern.

Meet the Jacquard Slate Moth, named after the colorway of Kroy sock yarn I used for him.

Every part of him was pretty much improvised on the fly (heh...)

I started with the wings, making sure I noted where in the color repeats I had started my first one to make sure the second matched.

These were then blocked to their final shape.

The body was done in the round.

I wanted the body to be solid colored, so I had to play with the colors a bit to get them to work out. I'm quite satisfied with it.

The wings were a little too floppy for my liking, so I sewed felt to the bottoms of them.

The legs are black pipe cleaners with more yarn wrapped around them to give it a scraggly appearance.

His antenna are feathers and the eyes are glass beads I sewed on.

You can see here that I was testing out the wing placement.

I wasn't quite happy with it, so I decided to add the little tuft of faux fur to finish him off.

Don't tell the others, but he may be my favorite amigurumi I've ever made.

And I have a feeling that he's going to lead to a whole host of new winged yarn friends.

I know, I know. Having moths, even fake ones, anywhere near your stash seems like an ill-omen and would send any number of my yarn friends into fits. But these ones, I think, will restrain themselves from chowing down on the wool buffet.