Hello my friends! 

A few weeks ago I posted some photos a summer Butterfly Conservation trip to a special MOD site called Penhale sands which is a special home for Dingy and Grizzled Skippers (super rare and are only found in this one place in the whole of Cornwall) but is also home to Red Admiral, Meadow Brown and Brown Argus.

It was amazing to see so many butterflies and Penhale Sands is outstandingly beautiful.

Now, in the UK we actually have three brown-coloured-argus-named butterflies, Brown Argus, Northern Brown Argus and Scotch Argus. Three beautiful little brown fluttery things and I decided to make one of each for my ever increasing collection of embroidered butterflies… 

Brown Argus – the one I saw at Penhale is #24 on my embroidered butterfly challenge, – its a member of the ‘brown’ family of butterflies and looks really similar to the female Common Blue, and has tiny black and white spots on their underwings with a minuscule wingspan of just 29mm making my twice life size version is still only 6cm across. 

Northern Brown Argus, is as the name implies only really found in the north of the UK. When their wings are open they look basically identical to their southern cousins (but only have white dots on their underwings) and are even the same size 29mm across so this one is also only 6cm across. 

I feel I basically made two to match.

The slightly larger Scotch Argus is really widespread in Scotland and has a wingspan of 35mm (male) and 40mm (female) and is a slightly darker brown with orange rimmed eyespots. When doubled to match my twice life size scale my Scotch Argus has a tiny 8cm wingspan! I think this one looks quite similar to the Mountain Ringlet I made earlier in the year.

Well that’s it for this week…which one do you prefer? I’d love to know! Thank you so much for checking this out and I wish you a wondrous week ahead!

Ps. If you wanna see all my other butterflies they’re HERE!

© ArtyMissK 2026

Greetings friends! 

Firstly, if this looks familiar its because I scheduled this post for yesterday but forgot to change the photos 😂

Lets try again shall we…

I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you this week! I recently met so many butterflies during my recent exploration of Penhale sands including the Brown Argus and really excitingly I spotted my very first Grizzled Skipper – a tiny black and white fella similar to the much more brown Dingy Skipper (#14 of my challenge, link at the bottom) so obviously I wanted to create one of these very special butterflies to add to my ever growing handmade collection. 

This is #23 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge the Grizzled Skipper – and isn’t one I expected to be making this year!!!

Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvae) is found in Britain and Ireland but is super rare, literally its only found on Penhale sands in the whole of Cornwall so spotting them is really special. Its black and white wings are covered with mottled patchwork markings and they have super fluffy bodies.

Continue reading “Embroidered Butterfly #23 {Grizzled skipper}” →