Tuesday 28 May 2013

Butterfly ghosts

A while ago, I had the idea to try and make a quilt block that looked like a circle of flying butterflies.  Inspired by the circle of flying geese tutorials out there, I decided to try and make a paper pieced pattern that didn't involve sewing any curves (I've sewn curved pieces before but it's not something I'm confident about).

Circle of butterflies quilt
A lot of the time I use Touchdraw for designing quilts and blocks, and I do really like it.  However, sometimes its more satisfying to draw something out on paper with a pencil and a ruler.  You might be able to tell that I used freezer paper - I like the extra accuracy that comes form having the paper in place when you're dealing with bias seams.

Circle butterflies quilt

This little wallhanging is made with lots of scraps from my Oakshott and low volume quilt top and eight different white on white prints.  I love the combination of improv piecing and highly controlled paper piecing - the "background' really ended up looking like a kaleidoscope.  I never thought I would be able to find a binding fabric to match, but Anna Maria Horner came through for me with her Sinister Swarm print in Vivacious.
Butterfly ghosts - back

I wanted to show you the back of this quilt, because it's something that didn't go entirely to plan.  I originally intended to make a cushion cover with this block, and I knew I only wanted to quilt it minimally, so to give it extra stability and body, I decided to fuse the pieced front and the backing fabric to the batting.  Turns out, using Vliesofix / Bondaweb to do this is not necessarily the best idea...  The fabrics went quite lumpy, and the extra stiffness made hand stitching hard work (so hard, in fact, that for most of the quilting, I just stitched through the front and the batting, not the back).

Ivy

In the end I managed to steam out most of the lumpiness from the front, and the extra stiffness is quite good for a wallhanging, so all is not lost!  Ivy still likes it, even if it didn't go quite to plan!

Have you needed to do any quilt "troubleshooting" lately?
Linking up with:

Better Off Thread Fresh Poppy Design

and finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.

10 comments:

Megan said...

Cool design! Most of my troubleshooting is the result of my ridiculous inability to do simple maths ;-)

Susan said...

Oh, when I read your comment about using Bondaweb, I thought you may have had trouble! I used a stiff type of that once and the quilt practically stood up by itself! So glad you solved it! But more importantly your design is fabulous! I love the white 'butterflies'!!

Catherine said...

It's beautiful - such a clever design!

MsMidge said...

Looks fabulous!

junacreationsuk.blogspot.co.uk said...

What a lovely wall hanging - and if it has cat approval, well you know it's all ok/

Camilla said...

Lovely! I couldn't really see the butterflies until the end. Duh! The white is great for them. Thanks too for sharing the challenges- good to remind me other people's things don't always go to plan either. So effective with the colours and the quilting!

Jess @ Elven Garden Quilts said...

Wow! You design such great stuff Adrianne.

Erica said...

Gorgeous!

Jessica said...

It's beautiful! I bet it shimmer with the Oakshott cottons :) LOVE the binding choice, too!

Julie said...

It looks great, but very complicated to someone like me who has never paper pieced before.