My First Tutorial : Fabric Origami Butterfly

The year 2015 will be, for me, a year of trying out new things.  So today, here's my first tutorial. It is about the Fabric Origami Butterfly. I showed it on my blog before and many of you wanted to know more so here goes. I hope you will enjoy it.

First, you need two (2) pieces of different fabric, cut 5.5 X 4 inches. (14 X 10 cm) The fabric can complement each other or be of contrasting colours. It's up to you.  Of course, I picked orange!

With the right sides together, sew 1/4 inch all around leaving an open space for turning it inside out.

Don't forget to clip the corners before turning. 

Press and hand sew the opening shut. Fold once on the long side, finger press, open flat and then fold once on the short side and finger press, in order to find the middle of the fabric.

At this point, I find it is easier if I pin the middle.

Take the bottom left "corner" (which is actually a fold) and bring it up BETWEEN the two upper left corners.

 Bring it up as high up as the MIDDLE PIN will let you.

Then pin at about 3/4 inch (1.8 cm) from the bottom. Do the same thing with the right side. Can you tell I am left handed?  Ok back to business.

Now that the butterfly is pinned, you need to bring down the "wings". So take the upper left corner, only the top one, and lift up and bring it down towards the bottom pin.

 and go a little bit to the left of the middle pin.  Pin the wing down.

You will do the same thing with the other side and bring it just to the RIGHT of the middle pin. Again pin.

Now you should have a 3D butterfly.

 A very puffy butterfly!!

 You don't like what you see? Try it again with the other fabric on top. Like this:

 What a difference it makes! Is it better ?  I find it looks like a moth lol.

Now press (or not) but this time with a hot iron. Then you whip stitch it in place. I stitch in 5 places : where the wings touch the second wings (at the bottom, 3 layers); where the wings touch the "body", (in the middle, 2 layers) and at the top to close the front and back shut (at the top). I start from inside the butterfly so the knot doesn't show. At the top, I work the needle under the little fold so doesn't show. In this picture of the back, you can see the five points I whip stitched.

And voilà!  You got an origami butterfly. Now comes the hard decision of what you will do with your butterfly. Will you sew it to a tote, a hat, glue a magnet to it or a broach or ... embellish a quilt maybe?!  You know Easter is just around the corner and don't these butterflies call for Spring ?

 Group photo!! These are the few that haven't flown away yet lol. I usually give them as fast as I can stitch them.  I see that the red ones are all gone ... again.

They look good with any kind of fabric.  Really, any kind at all.

I took this picture to show the different wings I make. The Icy one (on top) is hard to photograph but you can see its "over" wings are triangular. The blue on the left has long large "over" wings and the blue on the right has almost no "over" wings but shows more the bottom wings. Usually, they look like the Plaid one. It's all up to you and how you whip stitch it.

Some of these are a tad smaller like the yellow one. I've cut the fabric 5.5 X 3.75 (14 X 9.5 cm) and I like it a lot. 

Here's a picture of the very first one I made.

 It's not a moth, its a mam-moth! LOL

I have found this idea at  La Ruche des Quilteuses. It's a French blog but they have gorgeous photos and the tutorial has many pictures too. She also has two other patterns: the Turtle Butterfly and the Pencil Butterfly.

I hope you have enjoyed my first tutorial.  Can I say there will be a multitude of butterflies migrating all over the world ?

Until next time .... sew away!!

(^;

EDIT: it was first posted on March, 2015. The post got a lot of viewers and some unwanted kind too, unfortunately. Because of those less favorable visitors, I decided to removed it from my blog. Now, I want to try it again. Enjoy!