Design #441 – Love Butterfly

Time for a new design today and my inspiration is none other than…butterflies! For this design I wanted to create a really simple butterfly shape using other simple shapes. This ended up being more of a motif than a filler design, but it’s still going to look great on your quilts wherever you put it!

This design fits into the Center Filled family because you start in the center and fill outward. It’s also Beginner Level because this cute little design is formed from super simple heart shapes and echoes.

The antennae added to the butterfly effect, but also created a weird spot in the texture…hmmm…stick with it or scrap it, that’s totally up to you! Let’s see how it’s quilted:

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned realizing that this design works more like a motif than a filler design. Fillers literally “fill” the space on your quilt, like Sharp Stippling in the background of this butterfly block:

Motifs are designs that stand out as their own unique statement. Yes, they also fill space on a quilt, but most often they are a design that is placed first, then a filler design is quilted around a motif for emphasis.

So here’s another take on Love Butterfly, but this time placed on the quilt as a motif, surrounded with three rows of echo quilting, then filled around with Stippling. See the difference?

Don’t worry if you don’t understand the difference between motifs and fillers. The terminology isn’t important, but what you choose to do with the design is! Where are you planning to use Love Butterfly?

I think this design would look super cute placed randomly over a girly baby quilt. If you used bright, contrasting thread they would really pop and look so cheerful on the surface!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

2 Responses

  1. I love this quilting design and this is certainly the season, leading up to Valentine's Day, to include it in a project. Your continuing creativity is amazing, Leah!

  2. Jane Herbst says:

    Leah, the Love Butterfly motif is simply beautiful – and beautifully simple! My mother doesn't remember much about her life but she still remembers that she likes butterflies. Thank you for showing another way for me to incorporate butterflies into quilts for her and in her honor.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *