Moths On My Fabric

Have you seen the photos from the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab? If you haven’t, and you planned on getting anything else done today, do not click on the link. If you do click on it, you will do nothing but look at bug photos all day. They are that good. And they are public domain!! I feel compelled to wear one.

My love affair with myfabricdesigns.com is continuing, and I concocted a moth print for my new fabric. I placed the design to print 2 moths per yard of 42″ silk/cotton fabric. I’ve been seeing a lot of big butterfly prints for spring, so here’s my interpretation of the trend.

The fabric is up for sale here, but what you should really do is click on the link in the first paragraph, find your own favorite bug, and order fabric with that one on it.

I was pretty careful with the layout of the print, because I had a specific skirt in mind and wanted to buy a minimum of fabric to make it. I chose the cotton-silk to print my moth because of the lovely sheen and softness of the fabric, as well as the color saturation achievable on this fabric. Then there is the added bonus that silk comes from moths (though almost certainly not the one in the photo). This skirt took 2 yards of the cotton-silk.

back view

 

For the back pattern piece, I started with a piece of tracing paper that’s 24″ wide at the top, 29″ long at the center back, and 27″ long at the side seam. For the front pattern piece, I started with a rectangle that’s 24″ wide and 27″ long.

I took both pattern pieces and folded triangles out of them to add a bit of swing to the skirt. The top measurement was 14″ for each pattern piece.

I designed the fabric so I could buy 2 yards and get 4 whole moths. Because they moths overlap a bit, I broke one up. Here is one of the moths that I used on the back of the skirt, before stitching together.

Here’s the seamed moth after stitching together.

I gathered the skirt into a grosgrain ribbon waistband. There is a side zip.