Butterfly Whimsy

I recently finished this bright and beautiful quilt for Reneta.  The Allison Glass collection on black was stunning and Reneta left me some room for some fun quilting.  Reneta never chooses all the exact designs for her quilts, she usually gives me a few key words or feelings and I run with it.  Sometimes I need to ask a few follow up questions, but this time my direction of "Butterflies" and "Whimsy" gave me enough to go on.

I knew that I wanted to keep the quilting in the body of the quilt fairly simple.  I didn't want to put any color on the black X's as I thought it would take away from the design of the piecing, so I decided on the petal design in black thread.  Continuous curves in the colorful squares was just enough for me.

I had so much fun stitching turquoise and purple butterflies in the border.  I filled in the background with a ribbon meander in black thread to let the butterflies shine.

I do not have a computerized machine, I am hand guided, so I needed a way to keep the butterflies a little bit consistent in size and shape throughout the border, especially when I used such bold thread!

Here are a few shots of the quilt in progress and a video if you are interested in seeing the process.  It is simple and easy - paper stencil &  school chalk.  A few simple guidelines are all you really need, the details can be added by eyeballing them.

This might be one of my favorite quilts that I have ever done for Reneta and there have been a few good ones over the years - she is very prolific!