Dragonfly Wings

Here's how I made the wings for this big guy. The piece is about 24w x 30h.

The wings needed to be about 5" by 11" each, roughly.

I drew the basic shape and the major sections for each wing, on the stabilizer (purchased on Amazon). I referred to pretty dragonflies I saw online, and added my own ideas for designs.

Next I placed the fine, and slightly sparkly netting over each drawing, pinning it in place. (I found the roll of netting just by chance, on an end cap at Walmart. Not even close to the crafts dept.) It is perfect because it allows the background to show through the wings, and it's sparkly!

As much as I hate to use a hoop, I did. I made it very tight (and smoothed the fabrics well) to hold both layers in place. (The stabilizer was on the bottom with the drawn pattern.) The hoop wasn't big enough to fit a whole wing at once so I had to reposition the fabrics many times for each wing. Ugh!

The beauty of making a collage is that you can keep adding and rearranging the pieces until you like it. I did add a few sedum elements under the wings for more punch. In some places double or triple layers of netting were put in before stitching.

Stitching was done with Sulky 100% poly. in the bobbin. The label says: Invisible, Fine 004 Soft. And it is.

Top threads were white 40 wt poly and a gold metallic. (I don't know the brand, it's what worked in my machine on that day.)

It was all free motion stitching in the middle of each wing.

Then the wings were gently soaked in water and when the stabilizer dissolved, left to dry flat .

Finally they were appliqued to the background using a gold top thread and a decorative stitch. That stitch helped cover the raw fabric edges and thread ends, as well as giving more definition to the wings themselves.

If you're wondering about the body of the dragonfly, it was added after the wings so it would be on top of the wings' edges.

Lastly I did add dimension to the piece by using Inktense watercolor pencils around some edges to look like the wing was slightly shadowing the plant.

I hope you'll show us your wings!