F and F nature notes, hair installation, spindle sticks

Today in field and fen, from my favorite vantage point, the sofa, which gives a great view of the butterfly bush next door, a couple of sightings. 

One was the faithful old, apparently solitary, monarch butterfly, flitting around all afternoon, any number of bees and adjacent insects and, drumroll, the first clearwing hummingbird moth of the year. 

These are marvelous animals, wings going nearly as fast as a hummingbird, but with fat stripey bodies. Their wings are transparent so at first you can mistake them for hummingbirds until you notice they're not moving like a blur, that their legs are insect ones, and they're too stout for a hummer. One of my favorite moths, and we have a lot of great moths in this area. No pix, too fast moving.

Then the mail brought me my beautiful spindle sticks, ready for me to continue  learning supported spindle spinning. I have a whorl to attach. Notice she already wound on some fine thread. Nice touch. It means she's tested them for balance.

One in cherry, one hickory, both lovely. They're back in those tubes for now, to protect the points until I get to them. 

Bought from the maker, Caroline of Hershey Fiberarts. Support artisans!

Meanwhile back at the doll, working on her hair. I'm inserting lark's head knots of embroidery floss. This will take a lot of time and a lot of thread. Good thing I have both.

This is the back of her head, and you can see the back of the sculpting work. It will be covered in hair, so it won't matter.

Here's how a lark's head knot works.

And in case you thought it would all be brown hair, nooooo, more exciting than that

Silver, gold and metallic blue as well as a couple of other browns are in the offing. And maybe more stuff too. This is a doll of fantasy!

I have a great piece of patchwork for a skirt. And there will be pearls.  But first I need to get the hair sorted. And hands and feet, too, they haven't happened yet.