Embroidered Butterfly #22 {Wall}

On July 3, 2026July 3, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework BugsLeave a comment

Hello my friends!

A couple of weeks ago I shared a photography post celebrating the rare Wall butterfly. I was over the moon to not only spot this butterfly in my garden last summer but to also have found a pupa in the grass that was invading my patio!

This is literally the rarest butterfly I’ve ever seen in my Wildspace!

Super exciting, and of course I had to make one to add to my collection.

I decided to make only make a female as there isn’t masses of difference between the two sexes.

So, Wall is basically a medium sized orange butterfly with brown patterning…sort of a cross between a Gatekeeper and a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary. With a real life wingspan of 44 (male) and 46 (female) it means my needlework version is around 9cm across.

I’m so unbelievably pleased with this one!

As usual it has a very thin stainless steel wire concealed in the edge of the wings to help the keep their shape and it was lovely to work on such an intricate pattern.

Well that’s a wrap for this week…22 butterflies down and only 50 to go, I feel like I’m really getting through them only another twelve and I’ll be halfway through my challenge!! Stay tuned for the next instalment on my butterfly creating adventure.

Thank you so much for checking out this post!

Hopefully you’ll be back next week!

Ps. If you wanna see all my other (much prettier) butterflies they’re HERE!

Wall! (a super exciting tale!)

On June 19, 2026July 4, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies6 Comments

Hey friends!

This week I’ve got a super special post for you, I’m really very excited about this one!!

But first lets go back to the glorious sunshine filled days of July 2025…

Last summer I met a whole bunch of Wall butterflies for the very first time, mainly while walking around the village – they seemed to have a colony in the old no longer used and derelict churchyard, but I wasn’t expecting to ever see one of these butterflies in my very own garden.

I always assumed any small-ish orange and brown butterfly in the garden was probably Meadow Brown or Gatekeeper so I wasn’t really chasing every single one I saw…big mistake when I realised my garden of wildflowers was attracting a slightly-rare butterfly I was over the moon.

Wall (Lasiommata megera) is similar in size (about 4.5cm) and colour to Gatekeeper, but is so much more patterned and I think looks more like a small fritillary butterfly. They like to bask in the sunshine on you guessed it walls.

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A Moment with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle {One frame}

On June 12, 2026June 10, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends!

Can you believe we’re already nearing the halfway point in June! (OMG that means we’re nearly halfway through the whole year!)

I’ve got a new one frame to share with you, I kinda ummed and arred about what I wanted to post this week and in the end I was scrolling on insta and one of my photos popped up so I figured as I hadn’t shared it here yet, why not do it now.

We regularly get hedgehogs in the garden here at night and a few weeks ago I met a real Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle out and about roaming the garden in the day! I’ve never seen a hedgehog during the day before, she was sitting in the grass and we didn’t want her to be left out in the open so out came the sturdy gloves and she was (very carefully) put in the quietest corner of the garden inside the hedgehog house. But I couldn’t resist getting a quick photo!

Look at her little nose!!

The European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) is one of our most famous wild animals, covered in sharp spikes and really rather sweet these animals are normally spotted at night but at certain times of the year can be seen during the day while collecting nest material!

Hedgehogs eat more or less anything they can catch from crunchy beetles, to slugs and worms! These amazing creatures are covered in about 7,000 spines which are actually modified hair (its super sharp!) and have the ability to roll themselves into a ball when threatened.

We have 3 or 4 individuals who are all different sizes, and I’m forever finding their droppings in my wildspace – I think backing onto natural farmland has a lot to do with the creatures that find the garden, we also get rabbits and badgers and somedays we even have Red Kites and Buzzards fly over the garden as well as have owls at night!).

After taking her photo and placing her in the hedgehog house, we put some food down – which she devoured in 10 minutes before disappearing under the fence so I think she was healthy and just out for a stroll!

I really hope we get hoglets in the future!

Thanks for stopping by to check out this post, do you get hedgehogs where you live? They are so very cute! As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Raising Small White Butterflies

On May 29, 2026July 4, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies2 Comments

Hey friends!

I’ve got a brand new Butterfly Tale for you this week which is always exciting, it actually began last August when I spotted a tiny two leaf wild cabbage growing in my front garden totally at random. I only even really noticed it because a cabbage butterfly was paying it so much attention. When I went out with my watering can to feed my plants I realised that she had laid thirteen eggs on this teeny tiny plantling! I just couldn’t leave it where it was – directly underneath the bird feeder, so I carefully dug up the cabbage and moved it into my butterfly house.

It was only a few days before the eggs hatched and quite quickly they began to eat both leaves of the cabbage, at this point in the year I didn’t even have any other plants to give them so I resorted to buying organic ones from the supermarket! By the middle of September they had grown into these handsome green chaps.

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Hello! (A little bit about me!)

On May 22, 2026May 20, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Hello my friends!

Welcome back to another edition of ‘What have I been up to!’

I figured I should finally introduce myself, because I think it’s nice to be able to know a little bit about the person behind the pictures.

I can’t believe I’ve not done this before, although I really don’t like having my picture taken so thats probably got something to do with it! Basically I made these slides for insta and thought why not post them here too!

Ready here goes…

So hey, my name is Katie and I’m a UK based nature nerd, I’m also a book nerd who likes to do embroidery, paint, and is trying to create a little slice of happiness in my garden. I like raising caterpillars and giving them a safe place to complete their life cycle, which I’ve been doing since I was a kid. I use this account to post pictures of bugs I’ve seen, things I’ve painted or created, caterpillars I’m raising and trees (very important!).

I’d really like to give a special thank you to anyone reading this whether you’ve only just started following me or have been here for a while, it really means the world to have found such a kind corner of the internet.

I really hope you’ve enjoy following along on this journey. As always thank you so much for reading my friends, and have a lovely week!

ps. Trying to take selfies with butterflies is really hard, you have to be so quick!

Raising Orange Tip Butterflies (2026 edition)

On April 19, 2026July 4, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies8 Comments

Hey friends!

I’ve got another brand new Butterfly Tale for you this week which is exciting and has been a whole year in the making. When I planted my Honesty seeds last summer I did so in the hope that Orange tips would come and lay eggs in the garden – in 2024 I only found a single egg and cared for her as much as possible, so I was thrilled to find not one but eleven eggs in the spring of 2025!

They were spread across several plants, Orange tips do this because the caterpillars are cannibalistic when small although I’ve never worked out if that means they eat all caterpillars or just their brethren). I sleeved each egg in a mesh bag to keep them safe from predators and checked on them after about three weeks.

Eight of the eggs had hatched into tiny green caterpillars!

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Raising Speckled Wood Butterflies

On April 11, 2026July 4, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography, Raising Butterflies5 Comments

Hey friends! I’ve got a new Butterfly Tale for you this week!!

This is very much a surprise butterfly tale, last year I decided to weed the grass out of my birds foot trefoil pots and I found three little cream coloured eggs!

I felt really bad about disturbing them and popped the little stems of grass into an enclosure in my butterfly house with (don’t judge me) a new pot of fine stem grass…thats right I actually potted up grass (my brother thought I’d lost my mind).

After really studying the eggs I guessed they were either going to be Speckled wood/Meadow brown/Gate keeper or a type of grass eating moth – I figured that if they were actually going to eat birds foot trefoil then the eggs wouldn’t have been laid on the grass.

They were really very happy with their pot of grass and before I knew had grown into rather handsome green caterpillars.

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Embroidered Butterfly #20 & 21 {Meadow Brown & Gatekeeper}

On March 21, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs

Hey friends!

Firstly, I skipped posting this last week as the building work needed on my house finally happened and it was so super stressful…I packed up a whole bunch of stuff to clear as much room as I could to be out of the way of the builders and managed to tidy away my laptop charger, for the life of me I couldn’t remember where it was!

Still its over now and my heating is finally working properly!! (Yay!).

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of photos comparing the differences between two of our most common (and overlooked) butterflies Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper. I really love these two butterflies and kinda think they’re like the Sparrow of the butterfly world, brown, unexciting and everywhere. Obviously I wanted to create a needlework version of both of these happy chaps.

I decided to make females of both as there isn’t masses of difference between the sexes.

So, Meadow Brown – #20 on my embroidered butterfly challenge. Is basically a brown butterfly with orange patches on the upper wing, identified by the one white dot in its eye-spots. With a real life wingspan of 50mm (male) and 55mm (female) it means my needlework version is around 11cm across.

While Gatekeeper – #21 on my embroidered butterfly challenge. Has much more orange within their wing patterns ad is slightly smaller than Meadow Brown with a real life wingspan of 40mm (male) and 47mm (female) giving my twice life-size version a 9.5cm-ish. Gatekeeper is identified by having two white dots in their eye-spots.

I’m so unbelievably pleased with these two!

I have actually made a Gatekeeper before, way back when I was practicing the design process. Boy have I improved the process is so different now (if you wanna check it out the link is at the bottom!).

As usual it has a very thin stainless steel wire concealed in the edge of the wings to help the keep their shape.

That’s a wrap for this week…two more butterflies down only 51 still to go!! Stay tuned for the next instalment on my butterfly creating adventure. Thank you so much for checking out this post!

Hopefully you’ll be back next week!

Ps. If you want to have a look at my other butterflies they’re HERE!

Psps. My first attempt of an embroidered Gatekeeper butterfly from 2022 is HERE!

Psps (again). Also if you want to see my Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper photos they’re HERE!

Floral folklore #3

On March 7, 2026March 21, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello my friends!

As you know I love discovering the quirky myths, folklore and random stories about the plants I’m growing in my garden (I’m a total plant-nerd) and those that I find on my walking adventures. So seeing as it’s been a while since I posted one of these I thought I’d look at three of my favourite plants to see if there’s any fun stories relating to them!!

I love a thistle (Cirsium vulgare) they are plants in the Asteraceae family (which believe it or not is the daisy family) and are noted for having prickly leaves and purple, pink, or white flower heads. I grow many, many thistles in the garden and even a random one thats (for some unknown reason) growing in amongst the grass that I don’t have the heart to mow over.

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Meadow Brown vs Gatekeeper!

On February 28, 2026May 30, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hey friends!

This week I’ve got a two new butterfly photographs to share with you, you’ve probably seen them in your gardens or local parks, small, unassuming little brown and orange butterflies flitting from flower to flower.

These are two of our most abundant butterflies and usually one or the other win the top spot in Save Butterflies summer citizen science experiment the Big Butterfly Count.

These two types of butterfly look more or less identical…

Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) is often the most abundant butterfly in many habitats, from gardens to quarries and is even spotted fluttering about even on overcast days, which is unusual as most butterflies are inactive in dull weather. They are a member of the ‘brown’ family and have a wingspan of up to 55mm.

The Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) also known as the Hedge Brown is most likely to be spotted where clumps of flowers grow near gates or along hedges. Gatekeepers are often seen out and about with Ringlets and Meadow Browns and sometimes its quite hard to tell them apart. They are slightly smaller than Meadow Brown with a wingspan of up to 47mm (so theres not a lot in it size wise).

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