Inspiration from an Indian proverb « The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough ».

The idea of drawing attention to the short life of the butterfly really appealed to me and I decided on a rather abstract way in which to depict them. I had been eco-printing and noticed how, to me, bramble leaves ressembled a butterfly; I collected a new batch of leaves and formed ‘butterflies’ on strips of cotton fabric, the width of the strips were restricted to the size of my steamer so I joined them together around a central square which had a net added to the leaves to give further pattern.

The cotton strips were dyed with iron and cutch and then I machine embroidered the pièces together avoiding straight lines, then stitched around the leaves and also added the text. The background was stitched kantha style and then I added the vague body détails.