Marilyn's Butterflies

 If the perspective is a little weird, it's because I was taking these photos from under the quilt while it was in progress on the frame.

 I received this quilt with a request for butterflies for liven up the large green blocks.

I thought about a panto with butterflies for a while, but then I had a better (more fun) idea.   I printed out the butterfly template from Judi Madsen's book Quilting Wide Open Spaces and away I went.  I cut out the template, and as I quilted each row, I first laid out the template in random orientation and placement on each dark green/blue block.  I chalked around the template to trace the image, and then quilted the butterflies in that row.  Then, I quilted what I call a double bubble freehand edge to edge design in the rest of the row--giving the butterflies a fanciful flight path.

Notice the lighter blue area on the backing?  Marilyn was very clever here--the 60" wide minkee backing wasn't quite wide enough for the quilt, so she added a strip of cotton from the top of the quilt, and that became her label fabric. 

And isn't the pieced  checker board border fabulous?  

Each of the butterflies have 'unique' wings.  Many photos follow.  Quit scrolling whenever you've seen enough