Making a Spring Skirt

 

Stepping into spring with this floral maxi skirt accented with dragonfly, mushroom, rabbit and frog patches! It all started with a bedsheet neighbor Miss Sandy gave me. The sheet was patterned with flowers, grasses and butterflies. I cut the sheet in half to make one skirt and one dress. 

I used green elastic for the waistband, gathering the fabric into loose pleats as I sewed the he waistband on by hand with a blanket stitch. Then I sewed up the seams and finally, went through my iron on patches and added them to create a spring scene...

How to Make Cicada Wing Earrings

It's cicada season on the east coast, and their buzzy bugs symbolize the start of summer!  Infamous Brood X has had a zeitgeist moment lately, but they won't be around much longer.  As the interesting insects start to die out, they can be collected and made into wonderful things, such as these limited edition cicada ear-wings!

You will also need: earring posts, needle & thread, scissors and clear varnish.

First, the dead cicadas must be collected.  A walk around any local green space will turn out hundreds of fallen cicadas and single wings.  Search for the distinctive shine and you will easily gather plenty!

Start with a pair of wings similar in size and shape and gently pierce the upper center of the wing with a threaded needle.  Don't worry about breaking, the wings are surprisingly strong.

Tie a knot over the tip top of the wing then add an earring post.  Tie three times tightly.  Finally, add a few coats of varnish such as clear nail polish to coat each side.

Cousin Caterpillar

The Eastern Tent caterpillar is one cute camper!  These bugs craft tents of silk high in the trees and live in harmony with the other caterpillars, like a hippie forest commune!  The furry friends will even go questing for food together.  They refer the shade and cool, quiet environments.  Eventually they evolve into moths who spend all night partying!

A Mythological Moth!

As a fairy flies through the city of steel and stone, sometimes the forest seems so far.  But it doesn't have to be..flowers grow through the concrete, the woods behind the park loom, and the plants on porches all say spring is here and so are the butterflies!  

In the parking lot I found the Polyphemus Moth, great guardian of the green with it's owl eyes...the messenger between gandalf and gwaihir in Lord of the Rings.  I carried it home and put it in our garden with a small bowl of fruit and water nearby.  

 

Music Monday: Butterflies

This week I've been thinking about butterflies...

the brown velvet winged beauties I saw in the woods last year,

  the iridescent insects in the gardens...with green fairy wings...

"You are a splendid butterfly, it is your wings that make you beautiful...and I could make you fly away, but I could never make you stay"

This song All my Little Words by the Magnetic Fields is a recent discovery of mine.  I forgot that the butterflies come out to the forest this month...maybe I'll go down to the woods on Friday to watch them like I did last year...

An Insect Expedition

 

I recently got a chance to visit Butterfly Wonderland in Arizona, one of the county's largest butterfly and moth habitats!  The large atrium housed several species I wanted to document...

 

I was ready for an expedition into the world of insects!

The first room contained all the cocoons and chrysalises that the butterflies were emerging from... 

The African Moon Moth was one of my favorites...

The Blue Morpho butterfly camouflages its bright colors with an owl-like outer wing pattern.

This little guy didn't mind cameras at all.

The green butterflies were my favorites...

The Parthenos Sylvia liked to hang out on pine boughs...

A Cute Caterpillar

The other day I saw a caterpillar in the forest known as the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta).  He was crawling around on leaves and stems.  What I loved about this caterpillar was it's green color and horn.  The horn made it seem as though it were a unicorn caterpillar!  You can spot the difference between the very similar tomato hornworm with this trick: the tobacco hornworm's white stripes are straight like cigarettes, while the tomato hornworm's are v shaped like vines on a tomato plant!    Unlike other caterpillars, this particular species does not go into a cocoon for transformation.  Rather, he buries himself in the ground!  When they are done evolving, they become a beautiful brown moth the color of tobacco!