Butterfly Stitches

Catherine Redford is an award-winning fibre artist who still loves to learn and pass that knowledge on as she teaches quilting and embroidery around the United States and beyond. She lives in Illinois, USA. For more information, visit www.catherineredford.com.

A group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope. And that’s exactly what Butterfly Stitches gives you: a collection of twelve designs of winged creatures. Each design is worked two ways. The first option uses a range of surface stitches on fabric. The second builds up the design in layers of wool appliqué, finished with stitch and bead embellishment. The effects are startlingly different; you don’t instantly recognise them as being based on the same design. This encourages you to give things your own twist which ultimately is what Catherine wants.In line with her folk-art influences, Catherine’s designs start with chain stitch. So it’s no surprise, this is the stitch with deeper instruction on its formation and multiple variations. Thereafter, there is a degree of assumed knowledge. The book doesn’t lack anything because of this. To the contrary, it means the focus is firmly on creating the butterflies. In fact, it’s a fun and colourful combination of entomology and embroidery!