How about a wool applique butterfly?

Many of you know that I teach wool appliqué classes as well as different styles of embroidery.

It was suggested to me that my butterfly designs would work well in wool….

So here you are! January is now available with cutting and placement diagrams to stitch in wool at the Year of Butterflies button above.

(I use the freezer paper method of cutting my pieces out. I’ll try and post a little tutorial sometime soon.)

I chose some colors from Sue Spargo’s beautiful range of Mill Dyed Wool bundles to make the basic butterfly and used Ellana (a wool/acrylic thread) to whipstitch the pieces on to a linen background.
Once I got that done it was time to add embroidery with hand dyed #8 perle cotton threads from Akonye Kena.A row of beads around the edge were the finishing touch.Ta-da!!I cut the background at 12″ square to give me plenty of room for making up my mind when I decide how to stitch my finished butterflies together. ( I haven’t decided yet!!)

If you prefer a more muted color palette I also made a butterfly using some squares of wool from Marcus Fabrics. There are lots of colors available. You can see them in their Fabric gallery and then look for them at your favorite fabric store.What do you think?

Do you need to make two sets of butterflies? Add your comments here, or join our facebook group and show us your progress!

It’s cold and snowy here today. I’m looking forward to flying to California tomorrow. I’m taking my butterflies with me to stitch in the sun!