Butterfly Motifs

One of my friends wrote this morning and asked me if, now that I've experienced teaching, I would like to do more of it.
The answer is yes! So if any of you out there are interested, drop me a private email and we'll talk....and thanks.

I really haven't been doing much stitching over the last month so it felt good to have a little fun over the last 2 days creating some butterfly motifs. I used two different techniques.

The first one used waste canvas, with a design by Pamela Kellogg.

The second one was beaded onto cotton fabric, with an archival interleave paper basted to the back to act as a stabilizer. Robin Atkins teaches this method, and you can find the paper on her website here.

The design is by Sande Abel. I just eyeballed my butterfly according to the photo, which was torn from an old beading magazine and sent to me by my cousin Tracy. If you might (understandably) want to work more accurately, you can download a real pattern for a small fee here.

Once I had all my beads on, I prepared it for applique...

...cutting off the excess fabric....

...carefully trimming the paper on the back without inadvertently snipping any threads...

...stitching the excess fabric to the back.....

...and appliqueing it in place.
Look where it landed!

The waste canvas butterfly landed on the Spring CQ too.

This quilt has been resting over the winter. All along I've planned on adding a little more detail and complexity to it. Now seems to be just the right time.

Especially as there is so much inspiration right outside my front door!