Butterfly Leopard Embroidery Design, Instant Download

One half of this design is a butterfly. Left side, broad wing with those clean parallel vein lines radiating out from the body seam. The other side is a leopard, half a face looking straight at you, one eye visible, whiskers fanning out to the right, the fur texture built up in thousands of tiny hatched stitches. Both parts meet at the vertical centre like they grew from the same point.

Its all black, no colour changes, single pass. But theres alot happening inside that black because the leopard alone has probably 8 different stitch directions building the spotted coat texture. The butterfly wing is looser with wider spacing on the vein lines. The contrast in density between the left and right sides is actually what makes it work as a composition, the open wing against the dense fur.

Stitch count starts at 12,488 for the 3.33-inch size and goes up to 27,671 on the 7-inch version. I originally drew this for people doing bold art apparel, the kind of thing that looks more like a print than an embroidery. Since last winter I get a bunch of orders from people doing patches and art prints on canvas, which werent use cases I had in mind but totally makes sense for the design honestly.

White, cream and pale grey are the strongest backing choices. The black line art pops cleanest on light grounds and the fine hatching in the leopard section reads properly. Use medium cutaway stabiliser because the hatching density across the leopard fur needs a firm base. Stitch slowly on the crosshatch sections to keep tension even across the parallel runs.