Entomology Pillow

Watch minouette compulsively avoid grocery shopping by wasting time on the internet. I hate grocery shopping. It's a problem. Anyhow, here's a new pillow:





This one of a kind pillow features three original, hand-pulled block prints on fabric, of some of the loveliest insects: butterflies and a bumblebee. The front is a patchwork of a contemporary faux-bois print in deep blue, with a butterfly on a grass green cotton, a bumblebee on a delicate pin-striped umber and sunny yellow, and a monarch butterfly on a vintage floral. The reverse combines a rustic, hand-woven Nepalese fabric with a contemporary print like a scientific illustration of butterflies, moths, ladybugs (ladybirds) and bees.

I like the idea of combining vintage and rustic fabrics with contemporary fabrics, and embellishing things through printmaking to make something new.

The Mad Scientists of Etsy challenge for March is entomology. Natural history is still hot. When I was an undergrad studying physics, people would invariably ask, "Why would you want to do that?!" assuming, erroneously that their own tastes were universal and I was some sort of masochist. I always thought about the entomologists, because, while I know intellectually, they must derive pleasure from it, and probably think bugs are cool, I feel that the fear of creepy-crawlies is primordial. Though, it's the helminthologists I really worry about. If there's ever a helmintology challenge, I think I'll sit that one out.