Sometimes a really simple quilt can be so beautiful. This quilt is one of those. I’m calling it a Rainbow Butterfly Origami Quilt.
My friend, Miss P made this gorgeous quilt for her sister’s new baby and when she was telling me about it one day I just had to see it.
Once I saw it, I realised it was perfect for this month’s rainbow theme so she graciously let me borrow it to take pictures.
Thank you, Miss P!
The concept is super simple: a flock of butterflies fluttering from one corner to another in a rainbow of colours.
The butterflies are folded fabric inspired by origami. They are made with two pieces of fabric joined right sides together then turned through to hide the seams inside. This creates double-sided butterflies – two-toned butterflies in fact.
Miss P said she was inspired by origami butterflies but had to play a little to get them to work in fabric. You can see the couple of stitches that hold the folds together before they were attached to the quilt top.
Mollie Makes has a great tutorial for similar butterflies here.
The rainbow theme continues with the quilting and the binding. The binding fabric is a lovely soft watercolour rainbow – so pretty! The quilting has been done in rainbow variegated thread. The large circles intersect to create flower petals and stars. Again a simple pattern but so effective.
3 Tips for Creating a Quilt like this one:
- Lots of white space. White space doesn’t have to be white but having solid fabric allowing space without pattern or embellishment can create a lovely simple look. I used this idea in this quilt: Winter Stitchery Hexagon Quilt.
- Use interesting thread in the quilting. The variegated thread (thread that includes multiple different colours) can add subtle interest to the quilt – especially to a solid background. This works just as nicely when you use bright colours on a dark background too, as you can see in my Sashiko project.
- Turn origami into fabric art. The concepts of paper-folding transfer quite well to fabric and there are hundreds of origami tutorials out there for free so experiment to create something special. I can imagine folded boats bobbing on a sea blue background or folded animals in a zoo of squares!
