A few butterflies made

Top: Butterfly pattern from Electric Quilt 6

Bottom: Pattern broken out into layers for cutting

Ready to cut butterfly shape freehand

Not bad

It came out pretty well.

Upper yellow shapes are a little too big, don't fit.

Trimmed the oversized pieces a bit. Much better now.

I’m making good progress on Butterflies, the Kona charm pack challenge. I chose an applique butterfly pattern on Electric Quilt 6. I decided to cut the pieces freehand so that each butterfly has its own personality. Sometimes the pieces didn’t fit when layered on the previous fabric so I just trimmed them a little until they did. On a couple of butterflies I felt like they needed extra accent color so I cut out some small pieces and placed them in the “empty” spots.

Butterfly wing parts fused together.

Trying out body. Too wide.

Trimmed body a bit, looks better.

Antennae added

When I was happy with the way the wings looked I fused the layers together. Next I cut the body and antennae from the black painted fabric, which is not backed with fusible web. I plan to use fabric glue to attach the black pieces to the butterfly wings and background. I think that will be enough to keep them in place for machine applique.

So far I’ve assembled three butterflies. They look pretty good, but a couple don’t have the big color contrast I like. I had thought about using matching thread to applique the edges of the fabrics. But now I’m considering stitching in black to give the butterflies more pop.

Design notes

See more progress on: Make Kona charm pack challenge quilt