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Punchneedle Butterfly 1: Sea Green Swallowtail

I’ve started an ongoing long term craft project to make a group of different butterflies using Punchneedle embroidery – all different colours and shapes but all based on my interpretation of real species – and mount each one individually on a wall so they all ‘fly’ together in a colourful cloud.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have spotted this in-progress photo of my Sea Green Swallowtail:

punchneedle butterfly wip

With everything that’s happened lately, it’s taken me a while to find the time to finish the butterfly, but now here she is:

punchneedle butterfly: sea green swallowtail by planetjune

I wired the wings so I can bend them back slightly, to add a little dimension, and I bent the ends of the wire into a concealed hanging loop and a hook, so I have the option to hang the butterfly from a nail in the wall, or hook it onto something. Until I build enough of a collection to have them ‘flying’ up a wall, I’ll be hooking them into my wire storage shelves (with my prop fake plants) – and that looks pretty good too:

punchneedle butterfly: sea green swallowtail by planetjune

I’m so happy with how my first butterfly design turned out – bright and cheerful and colourful, just as I’d envisaged!

I’ve decided on a constraint for all the butterflies in this project: I’ll scale all my designs so they fit nicely into a 6″ embroidery hoop (as I did for this first one), for ease of punching. And, to suit the strengths of the Punchneedle medium, I’ll be looking for butterflies that don’t have too much fine detail, but that have varied wing shapes, colours and patterns, so I can build a stunning collection.

punchneedle butterfly: sea green swallowtail by planetjune

My next butterfly design will be a beautiful Peacock, and, after that, I’m not sure! I know I’d like to include at least one butterfly from each country I’ve lived in as part of this project, but they don’t all need to have personal significance to me. Do you have a favourite type of butterfly? Let me know, and I may add it to my butterfly collection!

(As I’ve already been asked this question, let me add: I have no specific plans to publish my butterfly designs, but I’m not ruling out the possibility of one day publishing them, either as individual patterns or as an ebook collection, if there’s enough interest. For now, I’m just enjoying the slow process of creating without any pressure to publish.)

buy The Punchneedle Handbook by June Gilbank

If this post has piqued your interest in Punchneedle embroidery, take a look at my Punchneedle intro page for information on this craft and how to get started.

And I know of an excellent ebook if you’d like to try your hand at it – my own Punchneedle Handbook! My punching skills are a little rusty after my 3-year hiatus, but I used all the fix-it tips from the Troubleshooting section of my book to perfect my butterfly, and now you’d never know (if I hadn’t just told you). 😉

9 Comments »

  1. Judy Carlson said

    I cannot say enough how much I love this! What about a Swallow Tail?

    • June said

      Thank you, Judy! I assume you mean the American Swallowtail? There are actually loads of different types of Swallowtail – between the Flutter game, trying to identify butterflies I’ve seen in real life, and research for this project, I’m becoming quite the butterfly expert 😉

  2. .: petrOlly :. said

    It looks absolutely fabulous! I’m curious how you added (and hid) the wires. The idea of a whole collection of butterflies sounds lovely. I’d suggest the “Queen’s page”, as the Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon) is called in Polish (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papilio_machaon ).
    And I hope you will publish the patterns someday 🙂

  3. alicia said

    Wonderful! I’ve been playing Flutter and it looks just like the one from there. The Banded Orange would be striking I think. May have to look into this craft. 🙂 I just need more hours to fit it in.

  4. LOVELY! I have been so busy the past few days and missed this blog post!!! now I REALLY REALLY want to try my hand at punchneedle! it’s on my wishlist! (just been busy)

  5. Jennifer B said

    It’s beautiful!

    I love the Monarch butterfly.

    • June said

      Thanks! Me too… Monarch is definitely going on my ideas list.

  6. Chrisie (CrochetChrisie) said

    Sooooo pretty!!!

    I absolutely love the Blue Morpho butterfly… if I may suggest.

    • June said

      Good idea! I’ve never seen one in real life, but they look stunning 🙂

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