Purple Butterflies and Flannel Scraps

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's still purple month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (until Tuesday!) and I'm working on this UFO.
 

There are 20 of these butterfly blocks, made with Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  The free pattern comes from The Canuck Quilter (click HERE) although I changed it slightly.

I started this project after my niece died, as a comfort quilt for her mother.  My niece passed away from a massive aneurism in August 2021, just a couple months short of her fortieth birthday.  She loved butterflies and her favorite color was purple (mine too!).  It took me a long time to decide on a pattern, but by January 2022 I had fabric and pattern in hand and started sewing.

The pattern is great, and the sewing is easy, but there are a lot of pieces.  This is what was needed for each block.

Luckily, I had these alphabet pins!  The pattern gives each piece a letter, so I could pin them with the appropriate letter and keep it straight.  Some of the pieces are close in size.

I am very grateful to all the bloggers who share patterns and tutorials with us, free or not!  I could not have figured this out by myself.

The plan was to finish this quilt by August of 2022 to give to my sister.  Sadly, she died of a heart attack last May.  At that time I had all the blocks done.  I just set them aside for awhile.

The original purpose for making the quilt was to comfort my sister.  Now I'm making it as a  remembrance of both my niece and my sister.

Next will be an inner border of the same size and fabric as the sashing, then a pieced border of half square triangles.  Many of them were already made from the cut off pieces as I was making the blocks.  The others are in the box above, more Kaffe fabric plus light prints, right sides together, ready to sew.

 You'd think that would be enough to keep me busy, wouldn't you?  Especially with our two youngest grand kids staying with us for 5 nights while their folks were out of town!  I knew I wouldn't be able to get any sewing done, so I started sorting a giant garbage-bag-sized bag of flannel scraps.  I didn't take a before photo (oops!) but this is the after photo.  The diaper box holds what's left to trim down plus a couple of old projects.  The rest are strips and squares.

As I was pressing and cutting, I put together pieces for six quilt kits.  I had to dip into the flannel yardage for borders etc.

All of these kits use mainly 3.5 in. pieces.  I made two bricks kits, three Stepper kits, and one four patch kit with alternate blocks.  One more four patch kit is partially cut, but just needs alternate blocks and borders.  Next year when the Community Baby Shower rolls around in January, I'll be ready.

The post it notes will help me remember what I was doing!  It's amazing how many times I've come across a UFO and had to puzzle over what my plan had been for it.  (Anybody else have this problem?)

The plan here must have been Lego skyscrapers!  My little guys made a very colorful town.

Snicklefritz made sure the flannel was cozy for sleeping.  He's always willing to test fabrics and quilts for softness.  What a guy!

I hope you have a lovely week, with time to do the things you enjoy.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap