Butterfly Week: Day 5

 How about some dresden plate wedges that disguise themselves as butterfly wings? This was the happy result of a mistake I made when I lived in Atlanta and was involved in a block swap with my quilt guild almost 20 years ago. Our task was to make a 10" block of our choosing and I figured I could make a simple Dresden Plate. You know - 12 wedges in a circle. This Amish inspired quilt has been shown here before.

What happened is that I used a bigger template and the 12 wedges in the circle wouldn't fit onto a 10" square. They were meant for a 12" square - it was too big! I began to take them apart, thinking I was dividing the block into fourths. Instead, I ended up with three sets of four wedges (I used to teach high school math, so I should be able to do simple division). Then I got angry with myself and tossed the wedges onto the 10" square and they landed so that I saw butterfly wings! I just needed a body!

Dresden plate wedges disguised as butterfly wings

Here is the first quilt I made with this pattern. I used real vintage feed sacks. This is all sewing machine work; no needle turn for those wedge tips. This was published in Quilt Magazine soon after.

Then I made another one for my first book. This is Butterflies at Night. It was one of those quilts stolen in 2005 and so I remade it.

Butterflies at Night

I remade the quilt and have since donated it to charity. Fun colors, right?

And then Windham Fabrics wanted someone to design something using a 1930s reproduction collection for making kits in Keepsake Catalog. And what did I design? You're right! This was such a best seller. There are still quilters who enjoy working with these sweet reproduction prints.

Storybook Butterflies

One of my blog readers named Audrey shared her Butterfly quilt with me.  She tilted the blocks and added the antennae. You can find the pattern in my Etsy shop. Very easy to make those wedges (no needle turn anywhere). Machine appliquéd to those 10" squares.

Audrey's Butterfly quilt

You never know how a quilt block can morph through a mistake. This was a fun discovery and I hope you enjoyed seeing these butterflies today.