Butterfly Garden - A Finish!

Butterfly Garden

78 x 87

Hand quilted

It's a Finish!

Based on the pattern Follow the Sun from Adding Layers by Kathy Doughty

I have a lot of butterfly themed fabrics and I thought this would be a fun way to use them. 

I used regular hand quilting thread in different colors to stitch around most of the butterflies in the circles. 

I used perle #8 in navy to stitch 1/4 inch outside all of the star points - both the smaller ones directly around the circle (here in aqua floral) and...

...around the outside larger star points (here in yellow floral). 

I used Lizbeth 20 wt threads in different colors and leaf and flower templates for hand stitching in the sashings.  I'm not sure what the green thread was that I used for the leaves but I think it's some sort of old crochet cotton I picked up at the thrift store in a bag of different threads 

The actual stitching doesn't show up much but I know it's there and it has some incredible texture. 

I started out making blocks with that darker floral fabric but ran out so substituted some dark background butterfly fabric.  (I usually never make sure I have enough fabric before I just start in making blocks so my quilts often have "substitute fabrics" here and there). I used the darker fabric in the blocks to represent the shady parts of a garden and the lighter overall floral are the sunny spots. 

I used a different dark (shady) overall large floral for the binding.  

I used this fabric for the backing. I don't remember when I bought or the designer/maker but I'm sure it was on sale or I wouldn't have bought enough for a backing. Anyway, it sure has a silky feel to it.  I like how there are little bits of color here and there from the hand quilting. 

I like the backside almost as much as the front. 

This is the end result of many months of Slow Sunday (and Saturday and Friday...) Stitching so I'm hanging out with other Slow Stitchers today at Kathy's Quilts. 

This was my goal #12

for

The 2016 Finish-A-Long