This has been one of the most popular tutorials we’ve ever had, and we’re excited that we now have a butterfly digital design to go with it! You can just print the size you need, instead of having to draw one yourself. Grab it here. This would work perfectly on the Becky Skirt Pattern!
Hi y’all! I am Jessica and I blog over at My Inner Need to Create. I am a stay-at-home mother to 3 kids (8, 4 and 3) but once a upon a time I was a web and graphic designer. Though I am not doing this as my career right now, I see this side of my style bleed through into all my crafting. In fact I like to think of all the clothes I make as a canvas waiting for me to make it into a piece of art. I like to do this in many ways but love the look of appliquéing…
Here is a recent appliquéd project: Rainbow Butterfly Skirt.
To start I took a skirt of my daughter’s to use as a pattern. I chose a thick gray knit as the fabric for the skirt (it was left over from my Superhero Circle Dress from Week 1 of the Sew Along). I just made a simple A-line skirt with no seem allowance for the top since I planned on using 1.5 inch elastic for the exposed waistband.
After the front and back of the skirt was cut out, I sewed one of the side seems together and laid out the skirt flat. Next I drew out the butterfly design, I used the skirt shape to dictate the cropping on the butterfly.
Take your design and trace it on to Iron-On Fusible Interfacing, make sure that you reverse the image!
Iron the butterfly onto the black fabric.
Next- cut it out.
Peel off the paper from the back of the butterfly, you will need this for a template in a minute.
For my butterfly I wanted a rainbow, but at this step you could use a cute print or a solid color. I choose my colors and sewed them together in 1.5 inch strips.
After the strips are sewed together and ironed flat, use the paper backing off of the Iron-On Fusible Interfacing as a template and cut out the wings.
Iron the black part of the butterfly onto the colors. Take another piece of interfacing and iron it onto the back of the entire butterfly. Then iron that piece onto the skirt.
Next you have to zigzag around all the black raw edges. I sewed with black thread…
but with a gray bobbin thread so that I didn’t have to line the skirt.
I sewed the skirt together at the other side then I attached the 1.5 inch black elastic as the waistband.
The skirt turned out very eye-catching with the bold, big butterfly but it is a really simple jersey knit skirt with very limited sewing skill needed (the zigzagging around the pieces of the appliqué takes the most practice.)
I took these photos with her wearing a black leotard as her top but a 3 year old wearing a leotard all day is really not ideal for going to the bathroom. So I refashioned a slimming black tank top from an old (very old!) tube top if you hop over to my blog you can check out the tutorial!
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