The cat moth

I live on the first floor and sometimes I get little night guests at the window behind my bed. Mostly they are moths, but I've also had grasshoppers stop by which probably live in the plants on the roof terrace above me.
I can never resist attempting to take photos of my visitors, but it's not easy because of the reflection, because of my small old camera, because I can't use flash although it's night, because this particular window is definitely not the cleanest in the house (I hate having to move the bed), and a cat hoping to claw its way through the glass to get to this fun toy also doesn't help. Ponder went completely nuts for visitors and would keep tapping the glass to which all of them have been surprisingly oblivious, some even stayed for an hour.

The other day this beauty came by, let me take a few pictures and then flew back into the night, as if it had just come by for me to admire it shortly.
Its color was kind of a ghostly white, very pretty, but the light of my reading lamp changed that in the picture. I love that I was able to catch the shimmer in the wings a little.

Shortly after that, Heather (my New Zealand artist friend whose cat paintings I use for the HeatherCats) sent me a picture from an Instagram account. koty_vezde edits animal pictures to give them cat heads or faces, with very surprising results at times. My reply was that I would probably have freaked out if my moth visitor had had a cat head, and Heather wrote that I should make a cat moth.
It didn't take a second for me to know that I indeed would do that.
A while ago, I hadn't been able to resist some fabulous ceramic cat heads with fangs although at the time I had no idea at all what to do with them.
Now, however ...

I went right in.
Bead embroidery, obviously.
I couldn't bead a bezel for the cat head, due to its shape, so I could just as well use the loop for the bail construction.
Sequins for the wings, of course.
A sparkly, "fuzzy" body, just because.

I began by drawing on where I wanted the head to go. It wouldn't be glued on completely as the idea of an edging around the ears didn't appeal to me, and I didn't want the ears to get in the way while embroidering the body.
Next I started the body with some old bugle beads that a friend brought me from an American fleamarket, so I knew nothing about them. She got me different kinds and my first choice was a gunmetal, but my needle didn't even go through most of them twice which was very annoying, so I gave up after a few stitches and turned to the other kind instead. They look black, but if you look at them in the light, they are more like a very dark garnet with a luster which makes them sparkle really beautifully. They are not regular, but I think they worked well here, anyway.

For the wings, I decided on two different colors, black (shiny and matte) because it fits a slightly creepy little cat moth and cognac to pick up on the head's color.
After finishing, I felt that the body was too flat next to them, so I generously added black bicones and black-blue firepolished crystals to it. Major sparkle!

Next the head got glued on, and with all the shine and sparkle, I spontaneously decided that this was not just a cat moth, but a magical fairy cat moth who needed a little headdress (I blame Mabel, my muse, she puts things in my brain).
And while I was already going over the top, I couldn't resist tiny dangles (size 15 beads, by the way, that I had to pick bit by bit off a dustpan after somecat threw the bead tube on the floor and the lid came off by itself).
Last but not least I put on a faux leather backing and did an edging. It was tempting to go completely wild with it, but it would have been too much, so it had to be very understated matte black seed beads.

I'll be showing you several pictures to give you an idea of how much the angle changes the color effect and I also have a not so great video to really show you the sparkle.