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

On March 21, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework BugsLeave a comment

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, 2026March 21, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, 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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Wandering among the Spring Wildflowers

On February 15, 2026March 21, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello my friends!

Who doesn’t love a flower in the spring?

Firstly I meant to post this yesterday but forgot to click schedule and it sat in my drafts, which is a bummer because its kinda broken my posting streak…oh well!

I’m not really a massive fan of Valentines day and while I thought about writing something cutesy I’m personally of the opinion that you should show love to the people you care for everyday not just the one day that our calendar dictates.

*Not that it matters now being a day late!

Still, we’ve miraculously had a few days of sunshine which I’ve taken full advantage of and tried to spend as much time outside as I can. There are so many pretty spring flowers in bloom at the moment that I thought I’d go for a wander with my camera and wanted to take you with me so you can enjoy the pretty countryside too! I hope these little glimpses of spring colour bring as much joy to your week as much as they did mine.

Ready?

Let’s go!

To start my spring wanderings I was met with so many Snowdrops, these jolly little flowers are truly a sign that winter is ending and the sun is coming out more, they are also known as the ‘fair maid of February’. There are a multitude of different varieties of Snowdrop including these ones that have a grumpy face (which I’ve never noticed before!).

Also as a side note while we look upon these little flowers and think they’re cute have you ever noticed that some Snowdrops have little green hearts on the insides of their inner petals!

There’s an old English superstition says that if you bring a snowdrop into your home your eggs and milk will spoil…I’ve pressed snowdrops and can confirm this didn’t happen -although I drink oat milk, which isn’t really milk.

Completely off topic and unrelated to spring time flora but my neighbours have sheep! They’ve been moved into the fields my garden backs onto and I’m totally in love. Aren’t they beautiful!!

Anyway, on we go…

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Embroidered Butterfly #18 & 19 {Ringlet & Mountain Ringlet}

On February 7, 2026February 16, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs9 Comments

Hello my friends!

A couple of weeks ago I posted some photos of Ringlet butterflies that I took during last years gloriously sunshine filled summer and compared them looks-wise to their much rarer mountain dwelling cousins (who I’ve yet to see).

It was so lovely seeing such a large amount of these butterflies just living their best life out in the wild!

So I decided to make both a Ringlet and a Mountain Ringlet to add to my increasing collection of embroidered butterflies…

Ringlet (the bigger one) – #18 on my embroidered butterfly challenge – are a member of the ‘brown’ family of butterflies and are an unassuming light brown to almost black butterfly with little decorative black eye-spots, with a wingspan 48mm (male) 52mm (female) so in keeping with my twice life size scale my needlework Ringlet has a wingspan of about 10.5cm.

The much rarer Mountain Ringlet (the smaller one) – #19 on my embroidered butterfly challenge – is much smaller than their cousins, with a wingspan of 35mm (male) and 38mm (female) and are much darker brown with orange rimmed eyespots. Even when doubled my Mountain Ringlet still only has a tiny 7cm wingspan!

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Robin {One frame}

On January 31, 2026January 29, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Hey friends!

Can you believe it will be February tomorrow?!

I’ve got a little one frame to share with you this week, now I don’t often don’t often snap photos of bird (I really struggle getting them to appear sharp instead of overly soft) but while I was wandering recently, between the storms we’ve had over the last couple of weeks this rather friendly little robin came and stood beside me on the low branches of a tree.

He or she is a obviously a Robin (Erithacus rubecula) which is, according to the RSPB the UK’s favourite bird. Males and females look pretty much identical and like to sing nearly all year round and despite their cute appearance, they are aggressively territorial and will fight off intruders to protect their patch of garden.

It really was very beautiful moment!!

And once I got home and was able to have a proper look at my snaps, I was pleasantly surprised at how clear the photos were, you can see the definition of his little feathers and everything!

In other news the first disasters of 2026 have happened, they say things always come in threes! Firstly my washing machine tried to take flight and promptly smelt like burning rubber (not nice!), secondly my air source heat system died and has got to be completely replaced including all the pipes and stuff and the radiators are being moved which is gonna mess up my wallpaper (yay!) and thirdly my butterfly house/shed kinda flooded this week – I was super upset I’ve never owned a shed and had worked really hard to make it pretty, the worst part is I literally can’t do anything to fix it until the rain stops and it has a chance to dry out.

So onwards and upwards I’m hoping to get all the bad stuff out of the way early in the year.

Thanks for stopping by to check out this post, is the Robin your favourite garden bird? I’d love to know. As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Ringlet butterfly photography!

On January 24, 2026February 16, 2026 By ArtyMissKIn Photography, Conservation2 Comments

Hello my friends!

I hope you’re well!

This weeks post is a butterfly centred photography collection.

Admittedly I took these photographs last summer and because of life never got around to posting them so I thought I’d share them now. 2025 was an amazing year for chasing butterflies, the weather was glorious and there were so many more pollinators than the previous year.

I met so many Ringlet butterflies…they were everywhere, Cabilla Wood (an amazing ancient woodland near to Bodmin), the village churchyard, almost every lane I walked down and even in my very own garden. It. Was. lovely.

All in all I took nearly 3000 photographs in 2025…mainly of bugs, nature and my dogs.

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Ladybug beetles {One frame}

On October 18, 2025 By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Greetings Friends!

Autumn is upon us!

So is a short post from me…

The leaves are falling, the warm clothes are out – along with my favourite winter boots and there is also a total abundance of ladybug beetles!! Over the last week they’ve literally decided that since the weather has turned chilly its best to go and find somewhere nice to hibernate for the winter…although quite a few of them have made their way into the kitchen. My butterfly house is also filled with them, its been like flying ant day but prettier.

Its been a couple of months since I last posted a One Frame so while I was watching (and wearing) the ladybugs I thought I’d take as many photos as I could in hopes of a few good snaps to share here.

Like this one, I think they’re harlequin ladybugs, but I’m not an expert and I think all beetles are pretty cool. I actually find it really hard to photograph these teeny tiny fellas, so when I get a snap thats in focus I get quite excited!

So with that in mind I really hope you like this ladybug post and are enjoying the beginnings of autumn wherever you are. I’m planning to post an update to my Wonderland flowers denim jacket embroidery next week.

Thank you so much for reading this post, and have a lovely, peace filled week!

Creating a caterpillar nursery (Red ads & Commas)

On October 11, 2025October 18, 2025 By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography2 Comments

Hello my friends,

I’ll admit the last couple of weeks have got away from me slightly, I genuinely cannot believe how busy I’ve been and at the same time don’t feel as though I’ve achieved anything (if that makes sense!).

Still, I’ve got a new butterfly tale for you this week. All summer I’ve been raising various butterflies (like I do each year!) the garden has been wonderfully filled with Comma (Polygonia c-album) and Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) caterpillars in the nettle patch that grows under the apple tree in my garden – unfortunately the nettles themselves are giant and literally grow up into the branches of the tree, I try to leave them alone as much as possible but once the spears are over six foot tall I clip them down to the ground and challenge them to grow again!

When it comes to cutting them down I actually check each spear and save the bugs, this year there were so many caterpillars I decided to create a ‘caterpillar nursery’ and try to recreate the nettle patch using potted nettles (yes, I also grown the stingy stuff in pots!).

Red Admirals in particular are always at risk of being attacked by parasitic flies/wasps which is a horrible way for them to die. So I get very excited when I them in the garden.

I’m totally fascinated with caterpillars, Red ad cats are fairly beige when tiny but when fully grown can be either black with a light green stripe or green which I magical! And Commas are little black cats that that become black/white/orange as they grow – its quite a pretty caterpillar, they have such cute antennae.

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Embroidered Butterfly #17 {Clouded Yellow}

On September 20, 2025October 18, 2025 By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs7 Comments

Hey friends!

I’ve been absent for a couple of weeks, theres a lot going on and I’ve had that horrid cold-thing that’s doing the rounds at the moment (not fun!!).

Still, I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you! I’ve genuinely had the best butterfly year ever and encountered so many critters, I’ve even met my very first Clouded Yellow! I always thought I’d have to physically go and search for these butterflies and never in my wildest dreams did I think one would show up in my own back garden and I wanted to create one to add to my ever growing collection of handmade butterflies.

This is #17 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 59-ish more to go!!! I worked it out if I make one a month it should only take like another four or so years!

Clouded Yellow (Colias croceus) who is one of our regular migrant species is considered to be a large butterfly with a wingspan up to 62mm, they tend to rest with their wings closed which is a shame because they are so pretty.

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