I HATE Butterflies!

No, I actually don’t hate butterflies at all, but since creating the Dancing Butterfly Quilt Pattern, I’ve come to find that many, many people hate this shape. Thanks to the wonders of social media, I’m never left in any doubt as to how people really feel!

So in this post I’m going to share inspiration and ideas for design alternatives. Many quilters have already gotten started on their blocks (remember, you can work at your own pace with this quilt along!) and many are changing up the butterfly design with different creative shapes to suit their tastes.

Fabric wise, if you want to stick with the fabric required in the material list, you can substitute the butterfly shape for any other applique shape that can be cut from a 10 inch square.

The simplest variation I could think of would be to cut 9 inch circles instead. Your quilt would end up looking something like this:

You could also draft a pattern yourself! It’s very easy to create your own designs. To make sure your design fits into the 10 inch fabric square, cut a normal piece of paper down to 8.5 inches square, then draw a design in the center.

Because this fits into an 8.5 inch square, all the pieces should fit in a 10 inch square with a bit of extra space around each shape to cut them out.

If you’d like a symmetrical shape, like a heart, fold the paper in half first, then draw only half the shape, then cut out the shape holding both halves of the paper together.

So I hope you can see from all these examples that there’s a million possibilities when it comes to the Dancing Butterfly Quilt. You don’t HAVE to make butterflies!