Quilting Butterfly Feather Flower in a Square Block

Today we’re quilting Butterfly Feather Flower in a small quilt square. This beautiful design is the perfect choice to for quilting blocks or quilt squares. As you can see the Butterfly Feathers perfectly fill the space perfectly all the way to the corners, or you could quilt the feathers in a circle to create the perfect flower or feathered wreath.

Quilting feathers is so much fun! I especially like Butterfly Feathers because adding the circles to each end of the shape actually helps you stitch it. When I first started quilting feathers, I struggled to quilt each shape with the proper angle and curve. By placing a circle in the end, you can focus on stitching the right curve, and the right angle seems to flow naturally from that.

Do you think this design looks more formal than regular feathers? When I was originally quilting Butterfly Feather Flower, I thought this was more casual. Now looking at them again, I think the circles add more elegance and formality to these designs. Learn how to quilt this pretty design in this quilting video:

Quilting Butterfly Feather Flower

Inspiration – Most of the flower quilting designs I’m stitching this week are created using older designs from the Free Motion Quilting Project. In this case, Butterfly Feather Flower is created from design elements within Butterfly Feathers. With over 250 designs to play with, inspiration flows so easily and I imagine it would be no problem to create hundreds of flower designs just like this!

Difficulty Level – Intermediate. This design isn’t difficult, but like this Spinning Daisy design, it can be tricky to match up the first and last petals together smoothly. When it doubt, mark the starting feathers on your fabric before getting started so there is a smooth connection and no squished or lopsided petals.

Design Family – Center Fill. Starting in the center of your quilting space, this design radiates out to fill the area. I’ve started this particular flower with a single circle, but you could easily use a large Peppermint Candy spiral, a cluster of Pebbling, or for a cool variation a square filled with Cubing.

Free Motion Quilting Butterfly Feather Flower in a Real Quilt – As I mentioned before, I think Butterfly Feathers and Butterfly Feather Flower are formal, elegant designs. These would be perfectly suited for wholecloth quilts, the borders of a quilted wall hanging, or a show quilt.

The wonderful thing about this design is it’s very easy to stitch – the circles guide the feather shapes. But it looks more difficult because the circles line up so nicely. Definitely give this one a try if you’re wanting to quilt feathers and struggling to get the right angle and curve to this design.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

Quilting Butterfly Feathers – Pattern #262

Most Popular Quilting Design on the Project – Spinning Daisy