Butterfly Tutorial

Here is the butterfly tutorial as promised.  I keep making small changes in the way I make them so all I can say is that this is the way I made this one.

First you will need some fabric with realistic butterflies repeating in the design.  As you can see, I have already used this fabric once before. 

Cut out two identical butterflies from the fabric.  These are rough cut - you will need to cut them out closer following the outline of the butterfly, clipping in the corners.  Or you can wait until you have stitched them together first before trimming them and then you will not have to contend with problems with the fabric fraying.

Here is where I detoured this time. Usually I would pin the two butterflies with right sides together, matching them up well, and then stitch around most of the edges, leaving a space for turning. Then I would turn it right side out and use a ladder stitch to close the hole. Turning the little wings can be pretty fiddly.

Instead this time I decided to press the excess under the wrong side of the butterflies. In one I basted the edge over before pressing. On the other I used a glue stick.

I have recently watched Judith Baker Montano's DVD and decided if glue stick is good enough for her, it is good enough for me!

I pinned the butterflies with the wrong sides together and used a ladder stitch to sew the two butterflies together.  This did away with having to turn it.

Once it was sewn together there were stitches showing since I used white thread and a few places where I did not get the black edges of the butterfly matched perfectly.

Using a black pigment marker made it an easy fix.  I just coloured the white threads and little white edges black.  Worked like a charm!

The butterfly is then sewn down on your background fabric with a simple seam up the middle of the body, leaving the wings free.  I used seed beads to make a body for it and added black thread for antennae.

And here it is from the side view.