I learned to embroider when I was a kid, when everyone was really into cross stitch (remember the '80s?). Eventually, I migrated to surface embroidery, teaching myself with whatever I could get my hands on...read more
To use them for embellishment, the wings can be steamed for five minutes to soften them, and then, using a sharp needle, holes are pierced at the tips and also on the sides, if you want (you pierce them, I assume, wherever you want to secure them to the fabric).
You can also stitch over the wings, without putting holes in them, and attach them onto the fabric with decorative stitching, like shisha embroidery. You can find a tutorial for attaching beetle wings with shisha stitching here.
I found that clipping then with the nail clippers worked much better than scissors (but if you have to use scissors, nail scissors are the closest to working as well as the nail clippers) and the nail file roughed up the edge pretty badly. It seems to make a nicer finish to clip it to whatever shape you want.
The book shows several pictures (including close ups) of a Victorian dress that was heavily trimmed with the wings, incorporated into a design with gold thread. Just lovely and well worth having a look at ?
The first thing I did was use the fingernail clippers to clip around the top, rounded part of the wings, which are thicker and curved. Once the tougher edges were off, I found that my goldwork scissors worked fine, trimming the wings into more regular shapes (for this pattern, petal shapes and half-petals).
John Neal Booksellers (actually a calligraphy supplier, if you know him) has a selection of cheap awls. These are meant for piercing multiple pages to make books.
Maybe one would be good for beetle wings?
Pro Level of eXPerience is the best solution for punching houses and professional digitizers. It is the hiest level and includes all the available options of the software. This level of program is designed for the company that demands nothing but the best.
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Find answers to most common questions about the software. Wings' XP is a professional embroidery software with many settings and parameters to adjust for getting the embroidery results you want. If the answer is not there fill free to contact us directly and we will answer it.
View a levels' comparison that will allow you to decide which one fits your needs. All features are listed per level allowing you to visualize where each feature is included. If more help is needed, contact us directly ore any of our distributors and we will be glad to help you.
Supports and saves to OLD file formats. For newer files you can download my editor! With CoatsEDV you can View your designs, make simple transformations and save the designs to the embroidery file format you want. Download Coats Embroidery Design Viewer 1.60 for free
Creative DRAWings is the perfect solution for anyone wanting to explore the wonderful world of embroidery. This progressive software allows you to customize any design with a reliable, powerful platform that is quick and easy to use. Whether you are new to home embroidery or an experienced user looking for the perfect one-stop shop solution, Creative DRAWings can help unlock your creativity in no time. With features including graphics designing, textile and screen printing, monogramming, and computerized quilting capabilities all available in the same package, it's the ideal addition whether you're looking for just the basics of customization or a more complex development. Get started today with Creative DRAWings and elevate your designs with ease.
In our eXPerience 6 software, we did our best to create an easy to use and fast software which will help you create your embroidery designs with the best possible quality. eXPerience 6 is the complete professional embroidering package with the best embroidery quality in the market.
It gives you the power to create a design from scratch based on your expertise or let the software automatically convert the artwork to embroidery and just fine tune the results based on your preferences.
Wings' modular is a community of Application Cells. Each application module is a Stand-Alone Program. It includes 14 modules which are activated separately. In order to create the functionality for each module, a Hierarchy Dependency Outline was constituted for Wings' modular.
The latest version of the software includes a lot of great useful and unique features. All features are spread in the modules of Wings' modular with best possible way that will make the addition of modules convenient. Build your own software based on your embroidery needs like a puzzle and save money from features that you will never use.
Wings Systems Ltd. is a reputable European company specializing for years in embroidery software. Our products range from professional software ideal for industrial users, to applications developed for hobbyists and home users.
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Hi Catherine, excellent point about the wings breaking if caught inside a hoop. Fortunately, I was able to work the embroidery inside different sized hoops without touching any neighboring motifs, sparing all the wings and the purl, which would also suffer great damage if pinched. The upholstered frame is also a good idea; I made one of those to help with filling in some additional space.
Beetle-wing (or elytra) embroidery rose to fame in eighteenth-century India and was appropriated by English visitors for use during the period in which the East India Company (1757-1858) and then the British military (1858-1947) occupied the country. Victorian gentlewomen in England, America, and Australia attended balls with thousands of elytra glittering like emeralds on their light cotton dresses, making statements about their wealth, power, and worldliness.
Victorian elytra embroidery has its roots in Mughal India (1526-1857). While there was a tradition of using elytra in Rajputani painting by at least the 17th century, the craft more likely stems from the use of elytra in houshold and personal adornment (Fig. 2), which may be much older.
The earliest elytra-embroidered garments for Western export are done with Indian embroidery styles on Western clothing, like the late 18th-century pumps in figure 6. Only later did a distinct embroidery style for export develop.
India was considered a colony of the British Empire from 1757 until 1947, first under the control of the East India Company and then the British Crown. Her peoples, commodities, and products were oppressed, plundered, and appropriated, and the craft of beetle-wing embroidery is part of that legacy.
Elytra dresses experienced their first burst of popularity in England by the 1820s, though Englishwomen in India had likely been donning it since at least the 1780s (Libes 5). Several extant gowns in Scotland, including the one in figure 7, are decorated with pieces of elytra along the edges of the dress. By the 1830s, large, ornate designs were common and the buteh motif had taken hold (Fig. 8). This would be the predominant pattern from the 1830s until the 1880s.
Elytra embroidery was used predominantly on white cotton dresses (Fig. 11) (Angus). Fine muslin was a symbol of India, just as zardozi and elytra were, so it may come as no surprise that many of the women who wore these dresses were those who had visited India themselves, often as the wives of soldiers in the East India Company or the British army (Libes 10).
Elytra have also been co-opted for haute couture in recent years. Design team On Aura Tout Vu sent elytra-studded garments down the runway looking more theatrical than ever in 2013 (Fig. 31). Belgian designer Dries van Noten took his interest in beetle-wing fashion a step further and created faux elytra (also a Victorian tradition, as it turns out) for his Fall/Winter 2015-16 collection (Fig. 32). Are we soon to see a resurgence in this age-old fad? Only time will tell.
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