Butterfly with Floral Embroidery Design, Instant Download

The wings of this butterfly arent wings, they're two enormous blooms, like open poppies in deep orange and warm red satin fill. Theres no actual wing membrane, no veining, just flower petals arranged in the shape of wings and it works completely. The body running down the centre is bright pink with a green fill on the inner section, which sounds odd but reads as a stylised stem connecting the two flowers. Long green antennae extend from the head end.

Each bloom has petals with clear directional satin fill so the stitch angle shifts from petal to petal, giving the flowers proper depth. Branching out from the lower wings are stems carrying red tulip bud clusters and flat oval green leaves, mirrored left and right. Seven colours total: the orange base, a deeper red for petal shadows and upper sections, bright green stems, the pink body, and the cooler bud red. Its got a folk-art feeling, the kind of thing you see on eastern european embroidered linen. I dont see many designs that pull off this kind of symmetry cleanly and this one does it well.

Nine sizes from 2.67 by 3.5 inches up to 5.71 by 7.49. Stitch range is 13k to 31k, which is moderate for the detail, so it stitches faster than it looks. Use medium cutaway on stretch fabrics and tear-away on woven cotton and denim. Float a topping layer on knit fabric and slow your machine speed a notch because the petal fills are dense satin. People have been using this one on linen and the texture of the weave actually adds to the folk-art feel. My niece stitched it on an apron this spring and the orange against the natural canvas looked exactly right.

White and cream backgrounds let the orange and red do their thing. Pale sage green, soft terracotta and warm ivory all sit well with this palette. Black backgrounds work for a bolder mood. Keep away from busy prints as the symmetry of the design needs a clean background to land properly. Reach out a chat if you want a colour swap suggestion for a specific fabric.