Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Butterfly Challenge

I love challenges and dares, you tell me I can't do something and I will go out and do it, I dare you.
The Butterfly Challenge - Show me your interpretation of the block. Make it as unique as you can.You can alter the pattern (from The Tartan Kiwi blog).
I accept the Challenge!
When I first started sewing 2 years ago, there was a Paper Pieced Challenge, and I couldn't understand how people were getting those tiny little pieces of fabric wrapped around the odd shaped small pieces of paper.
5 Pence, the size of a dime, larger than that little triangle of fabric.
So I give you my English Paper Pieced and my Foundation Paper Pieced Butterfly an ode to my fist days sewing and not understanding the difference between the two.  First I made my lovely hexagons the English Paper Pieced way, I love this kind of sewing it allows me to be outside while the kids play and is easy to put down and pick up again.
The flowery hexies are Liberty of London, then I surrounded them with "Indelible" by Katarina Roccella for Art Gallery Fabrics, I didn't want to cut my Liberty hexies to much.  This is for the top two wings, the bottom wings were done the Foundation paper pieced method of sewing through paper, for the bottom wings I used some Kona solids mixed with the "Indelible" collection.
To make the project unique, I turned the butterfly into a dress for my daughter (hoping to get bonus points from Juliet's 5 year old daughter Rascal, maybe she will be like, hey mom make me one of those)
Everyone in the family likes it.
Yes, that is my son wearing the dress, hey, he wanted too :)
Creating this, I had many first.
  1. Mixing EPP with FPP (need help with those terms, write me;)
  2. Designing my own dress pattern
  3. Using French seams to finish the whole dress.
  4. Sewing with Voile (will be buying more of this, it is lovely!)
This project has kept me busy the last weeks, so happy it is finished, P.S. you might notice the bottom is not hemmed, I used the selvage for the hems, to help with that, but also my daughter won't let me turn them up, in fact she doesn't want to take it off.  I had to take it off of her last night so she wouldn't go outside to play in it, at lunch she came back with mud all over her shorts, so there was no way I was letting her out of the house in this brand new made dress.  So then she decided to play inside.
Yes, I was cringing as she rolled around the floor, after she was done twirling.
Linking to the Butterfly Challenge
 and New to Me in August
don't forget to enter my Giveaway.
Show me your interpretation of the block. Make it as unique as you can.You can alter the pattern - See more at: http://www.thetartankiwi.com/search/label/butterfly%20challenge#sthash.O5Diafgi.dpuf
Show me your interpretation of the block. Make it as unique as you can.You can alter the pattern - See more at: http://www.thetartankiwi.com/search/label/butterfly%20challenge#sthash.O5Diafgi.dpuf
Show me your interpretation of the block. Make it as unique as you can.You can alter the pattern - See more at: http://www.thetartankiwi.com/search/label/butterfly%20challenge#sthash.O5Diafgi.dpuf
Show me your interpretation of the block. Make it as unique as you can.You can alter the pattern - See more at: http://www.thetartankiwi.com/search/label/butterfly%20challenge#sthash.O5Diafgi.dpuf

12 comments:

  1. So many firsts in one lovely dress!

    Thanks for linking up to New to Me too

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  2. Well done, this is awesome! So many great ideas in one dress (and you used some of my favourite fabrics) Good luck in the challenge and thank you for joining in. J x

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  3. so many new techniques, but you have pulled them off wonderfully. I love that AMH print that you used for the skirt of the dress :-)

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  4. This is just gorgeous!! I love the way you mixed the two techniques, and Indelible was perfect for it!

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  5. What a cool idea to combine the two types of paper piecing! And to turn it into a dress - I bet it will get a lot more love that way than as the standard cushion most patterns seem to end up as.

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  6. So fun! Love the EPP FPP K.R. Indelible, L of L combo! And a dress! How dreamy :) I would have loved one as a kid.

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  7. Great combination. I love EPP too as it's more relaxing. You can see how much she loves the dress in her smiles x

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  8. Very clever - yes it's always wise to make that distinction between English and Foundation PP! I can see the dress will be well loved - great idea :-)

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  9. Gorgeous dress and love how you changed up the butterfly.

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  10. Wow Mara! What a creative way to use the butterfly block. The dress absolutely adorable and it looks like your daughter loves wearing it too. She is so cute!!

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  11. LOVE IT>.. I am working with Butterflies right now too, Girlfriend and EPP, I know we would be the closes friends if you didnt live on the other side of the world and that little Kat would have a great Texan Gandma.. I have one just like her with Red Hair... I am so busy right now but there is a Shop HOP and PassPort Hop around TX going on and I am taking some time to shop, it cost 5.00 and every shop you go into you get a refreshment and free FQ.. Making Matt drive me this weekend too.. I am starting on my LOW Volume 3 in Hexie Quilt, are you gonna make me a few? I would love for you to put your name on one and Greece. this is the friendship quilt for me, I talked about. My mom just bought me fabric in Hawaii.. so excited. Gotta run, love ya xoxoxxo

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