Wednesday 27 August 2014

Show & Tell: The Butterfly Challenge

Hey Everyone,

Show & Tell Thursday's

So, you know my friend Juliet, who's incredible paper piecing design talents I'm always harping on about?  Well.  Between taking over the world with her amazing patters (ahem - have you seen big bear??), getting published and being a great mum, she set a wee challenge last month around her Butterfly patterns. I do so love a good challenge... :)

The Tartankiwi

A few ideas came and went but this one stuck the most... Turn those little butterflies into a flower :) I had a slightly bigger vision... of three butterfly-flowers in different colours, and perhaps turning them into a wee quilt... but you all know what time often does to grand dreams... Anyhoos - I present my one flower :)

The details:
- I used Juliet's small butterfly pattern and reduced it to 80% - in order for the flower not to be humongous once all the small butterflies were combined.  The total size as pictured is 18"x18".
- The petals were hand-drawn - I do like how they all ended up looking a bit like hearts :)
- I quilted the middle with pebbles - a first! My eyes actually started tearing up from not daring to blink while at it - didn't want to break the momentum!
- The wings have wee twirly-whirly bits quilted in them too - spurred on by not totally screwing up the pebbling, I thought I'd give it a go.

At one point I also envisioned there being extra petals between the butterfly ones. So I set about drawing a paper-pieced pattern to make it so! Was a bit happy with the result, though I decided against adding them in the end, and have the quilting make the picture.

So who knows what it will become - a large cushion? A bag? Maybe there will be some extra "flowers" one day to make it into a quilt? Or something else entirely? For now, it's a completed block for the challenge. A butterfly flower :) Or perhaps it's an inverted four leaf clover? Will it bring me luck? :p

Did you get into the challenge and do something a bit different with Juliet's butterflies? There's still time if you're keen! And did I mention the awesome prizes??
Looking forward to seeing what you've been making this week!
L xx

Show & Tell Thursday's





12 comments:

  1. Amazing - both yours and Juliets talent - time hmmmmm def lacking in this house !

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  2. Its beautiful Leonie. Go you with your fancy quilting! I tried pebbling once an swore never again! Its one of those things that I love when other people do hee hee.

    (i told you I'd get you designing didn't I!?!- make sure you do something with the wee petal that you designed- it'll be beautiful!)

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  3. Beautiful work - I love the colours you've chosen together too. If you end up making a quilt you could scatter some of your petals around the design.

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  4. Woohoo! Fabulous, cool fabric choices.........I hope you are back to blinking after all those pebbles! Looks great.

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  5. Well done getting into the challenge. I often aspire to but never actually get there

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  6. super clever drawing up your own paper piecing pattern :-) And this is such a fun design - the pebbles are so tiny, no wonder you didn't want to blink!!

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  7. Amazing...it took me ages to just make one!

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  8. Fabulous idea Leonie - I love what you did with this pattern! Beautiful!! It's begging to be completed now - looking forward to seeing what you do next!

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  9. You girls are all so CLEVER!!!

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  10. You are so clever... This whole paper piecing thing is like a magical foreign language to me! I love what you did with your block, you really made it into something different and "yours". Xx

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  11. Clever clever you.. I admire anyone that has the patience to do this .. I am not about to try it.. xx

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  12. A four leaf clover it was, lucky you and so cute that Rascal painted a picture of it :) P.S. your paper pieced leaf is amazing!

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Thanks for stopping by - it brightens my day!