Bobby Pin Butterflies

Around this time of the year I start to crave color like I crave chocolate, potato chips, or coffee! It’s supposed to be spring, but outside, it is relentlessly cold, cloudy and gray. So as an offering to the vernal gods, I created these Bobby Pin Butterflies, wearable bursts of color meant to usher in sunnier times!

No creature better manifests pure beauty and color than a butterfly. In fact, a group of butterflies is called a “kaleidoscope”! To bring this particular kaleidoscope to life I used our new Mariposa Felt Bundle. It is everything that spring should be, pretty, cheerful and luminous!

Designed as an adorable hair accessory, these sweeties are also terrific for Easter decorating. Perched around the edge of an Easter basket, on the tips of a forsythia branch, or amidst a beautiful centerpiece, these fluttering little butterflies are a very happy symbol of the season!

And they couldn’t be easier to make. Each butterfly comes together with just one stitch, while black bobby pins effortlessly transform into surprisingly perfect butterfly bodies and antennae!

Materials

To make at least two dozen bobby pin butterflies:

• A Mariposa Felt Bundle, 100% wool felt.
  
• DMC Pearl Cotton in color B5200.
• A Bobby Pin Butterflies Template, printed and cut out. It is available for free download here.
• Black bobby pins which you can find at almost any drugstore. These are the ones I used.
• An embroidery needle.

Size

1 1/2-inches by 2 1/2-inches

Pattern

For a cutout style butterfly:

Cut a wing 1  from a colored piece of felt using the template. This is the Inner Wing.

Cut a wing 2 from either the ecru or white felt using the template. This is the Outer Wing.

For a solid butterfly:

Cut a wing 1 from a colored piece of felt.

Cut another wing 1 from either the ecru or white felt using the template.

Pick one of these wings to be the Inner Wing and one to be the Outer Wing.

Slide a bobby pin up the center of the Outer Wing, starting at the bottom so that the opening of the bobby pin ends up at the top of the butterfly.

Now orient the bobby pin so that its flat side is facing up and its wavy side is facing down.

Place the outer wing piece on top of the inner wing piece, matching up the edges and sandwiching the bobby pin in between.

Tie a knot at the end of a 10-inch length of the pearl cotton and thread it onto the needle. Insert the needle in between the two wing layers, exiting just above the bottom hole of the Outer Wing, to the right of the bobby pin. (On a solid style butterfly use the divot between the bottom and top sections of the wings as the guide for where to start your stitches.)

Insert the needle just above the exit point and travel through both wing layers to the opposite side of the bobby pin, as shown above.

Insert your needle just below that exit point and pull it through both wing layers to exit at the original starting point, as shown above.

Pull these stitches taut so that the wings pull together a little bit.

Sew through the same stitches one more time, pulling the stitches taut as you go.

Sew the needle through to the Inner Wing side of the work, and tie a small knot, securing the wing position.

Sew the needle through the Inner Wing only and snip off the end of the thread, hiding it in between the two wing layers.

All done!