I'd be very worried if this thing came and landed on my sandwich! He's a knitted fly, about one and a half inches long. I used the basic pattern in the
Birds, Butterflies & Beautiful Beasties book but had to adapt it somewhat to meet my client's requirements.
The body was knitted in a mixture of shiny black crochet cotton and metallic green/purple thread - it does have the irridescence of a bluebottle which unfortunately doesn't show up in the picture. The eyes are made up of AB black seed beads sewn into a circle. His legs are pieces of wire hairpin bent into shape and threaded through the belly.
The wings caused me a bit of a hiccup. I had originally planned on using organza ribbon but when it came to making them, the ribbon was not wide enough and also had a white stitched edge which would not have looked good. Then I had a light-bulb moment and remembered a little set of organza jewellery bags someone had given me, and luckily there was a silvery-grey one (just the one!) which was perfect. First I sprayed the fabric with hairspray to prevent fraying. I looked up houseflies in my insect reference books and drew out a correct shape on the material then cut it double. The knitting book has a peculiar shape for the wings, bit like a turnip, but you know me, a stickler for realism. The fabric was then embroidered by hand using some very fine silver silk thread.
But that's not all - this fly is for close-up shots. I was also required to knit three life-size flies.....
Needless to say, there is not quite so much detail in these. They are made from a small length of knitted Icord using the same threads, then the cast on section doubled over and stitched to make a head shape. A single AB seed bead was used for each eye, and the legs are short lengths of the black thread. The wings are plain organza - even I draw the line at embroidering this small!
This was incredibly fiddly but lots of fun. I wouldn't want to do it every day though!
Am I the only person in the world commissioned to knit poo?
I really rather think so. If you would like some poo and a fly of your own, get in touch.........I'm off to have a bit of a lie down in a darkened room and consider the direction my life has taken.....