Butterfly Blues

Welcome to 2025! As a Benartex Sewcial Ambassador, I have the pleasure of working with some of their latest collections. My first set out of the box (literally) is Blessed Nest by Shannon Roberts.

The box arrived early December:

And this is what I found inside!

Blessed Nest fabrics ready for my pre-planned project

There were butterflies in one of the main prints (top fabric behind all the others above) and so I remembered a quilt I patterned for Quilt Magazine about 25 years ago. I printed the pattern and auditioned it on a 12-1/2" square of newsprint. It fits nicely!

Butterfly pattern sized for a 12" block

Then I traced it onto freezer paper. This way I am able to cut out my fabrics:

Butterfly traced onto freezer paper

What's next? Time to iron the freezer paper to my turquoise fabric which I selected to be the 4 butterflies.

The waxy part of the freezer paper goes onto the right side of the fabric. The fusible webbing has been pre-applied to the wrong side of a blue fabric rectangle. I will be using raw edge machine appliqué.

Rough cut freezer paper butterfly ready to be cut out from the Chalk Scroll in Turquoise

Here is the cut out butterfly auditioning on the light background print. I chose 3 prints from the Tonal skus.

Here are 3 happy butterflies!

3 butterflies with 3 different background squares

Yes, this quilt will have 4 butterflies. Here's the 4th one with the thread I used for the raw edge machine appliqué.

First butterfly finished

I took a lot of other process photos, but I don't want to lose you here! It's a simple butterfly based on a vintage pattern. I used black thread for the antennae and for the body. Little circles for the ends of the antennae.

Now for the four blocks auditioning on my design wall with my 3-1/2" sashings. I love how that striped print works so well for those sashings.

I wanted to make this a bit longer than it is wide, so I added some more 3-1/2" squares to top and bottom, an inner border and awesome outer borders! I had hoped I could quilt it before Christmas, but didn't happen. But I did piece the back and have the batting. What a sweet child's quilt, right?

Butterfly Blues quilt using Blessed Nest: 48" x 54"

I quilted this on Friday using my HandiQuilter Sweet 16. Stitch counter has it at 23,015!!

Here's my label (no handwork here; even the binding is machine stitched).

Label stitched into quilt corner

Take a visit to the Benartex website to see this and other beautiful collections due out NOW! If you're on Facebook, take a visit to their page and "like" them so you can stay current on all things new. Did you know they have an ongoing monthly contest with bundles of fat quarters as prizes?! Check it out!

I've posted about this quilt on my Instagram page (somewhat new to me, but I'm busy adding things). Debby Kratovil's Instagram page