Enchanted Butterflies Quilt

 

This quilt is brought to you by Riley Blake fabrics circa 2010. This is another collection of fabric that I got years ago when I had napping babies and plenty of time. Then things changed, time was lost, and I had to put it on the shelf. When the pandemic hit, I pulled out all the fabrics that I hadn’t been able to use yet and started working. This particular set finally made it to the table, and this time I had a plan. 

 

 

For this fabric, I knew I wanted to do a butterfly pattern. I found one I liked and used the quilt block program to figure out measurements and cuts. I wanted to make it a scrappy look, so I pulled some fabrics from my stash to fill in the gaps.

 

 

After finishing the butterflies, I realized the blocks alone weren’t quite enough for lap or twin size quilt. I decided to add sashing and thought it would be a nice opportunity to add the flowers that butterflies would want to check out. Again, I pulled fabric from my stash to keep it mixed up.

 

 

Final step was to add a border that tied all the butterflies and flowers together. This was the last piece of the collection that I saved special for this part. For the backing, I found a fun fabric at the LQS on the backings clearance rack. Perfect!

 

 

I quilted freehand outlines of the flowers and the butterflies, and then finished the rest of the quilt with a basic meander. 

 

 

 

 

 

For the binding, I used one of the fabrics with circles in a brown-on-brown pattern. The pictures don’t show it well, but it’s there.

 

 

 

This was so gratifying to finish. When I first got this set of fabric, this is what I envisioned I would be able to do with it. It feels so good when your visions come to life.

 

 

The colors confused me a bit as far as what season this may best represent. In some ways it’s spring and summer, but I think at the end of the day, this is a fall colored quilt. We still have a lot of plants blooming in the desert when fall begins and these colors definitely make me feel at home in the desert in fall. So glad it’s finished in time to enjoy this year!