appliqué, line and luna

I started appliquéing this luna moth one month ago.  A smooth and lightly painted moth against a contrasting dark and textured fabric -  not painted dark, because the fabric can become too hard to hand stitch with too much paint. Appliqué seemed a likely choice although I typically avoid it because I rarely like my results. I tend to overwork the edge and get too fussy with it trying to get that outline that I like. This time I went with my favorite backstitch line following a drawn and then needle turned edge. It worked very well except for the resulting small halo of light fabric left outside the stitched line. I can actually imagine this being something to work with and utilize later - that halo - but for this I wanted the moth really seated in the dark fabric. This edge outside the line is noticeable above on the right side of the moth.

I decided to use a permanent pitt pen fine point marker to darken that little folded edge. I could only turn the edge so far on those tail wings and the pen brought it back to the fine detail in those thinnest areas. I think I could probably darken that edge outside my drawn line before I start stitching to appliqué but it may be harder to see what I am doing as I needle turn and stitch if the edge is already darkened? May try that next and see how it goes.

 Lots more stitching planned on this cloth and I feel like this appliqué method has opened up a lot of possibilities. I do plan to wash the whole cloth when the stitching is done and imagining those inked edges may need refining after the wash and crinkle.

and it looks like I had avoided appliqué so much it wasn't yet even a category on this blog - so now it is - starting with luna.