Woven and Embroidered Butterfly on a Flower Loom

Butterflies make a great addition to your flower loom garden.

Make one, or a dozen!

	You can use any round flower loom to weave butterflies. I like to use the Hana-ami loom by Clover. Looms with twelve spokes will also work but you’ll have to experiment to get the look that you want. If you are using a loom with 24 spokes, wind your loom, leaving three spokes empty at the top and bottom. For a 12 spoke loom I would try leaving one spoke empty.
	Thread your needle with the yarn you want to weave with. You will need to cut your yarn long enough to secure the centre and weave one large wing. Start by weaving over one thread, under one (and so forth), all the way around. Leave a 4″/10cm tail at the beginning to weave in later.
	When you have gone all the way around once, weave the next round going under one thread, over one, and so on all around. You will be weaving under the threads that you went over last time.
	Pull the yarn quite tightly as you weave. This will secure the centre of your butterfly and stop it from losing it’s shape when you remove it from the loom.
	At the bottom of your loom, move one or two loops over one spoke to form the bottom wings. If you’re using a 12 spoke loom don’t worry about moving them over, just don’t weave them yet 🙂
	Weave the top wing, going under one thread, over one all the way across. Repeat for each row of weaving. Weave as many rows as you want, then squash in a couple more to fill the loops of thread when you take the butterfly off the loom. Cut the yarn,leaving 4″/10cm to darn in later
	Weave the other wings the same way.
	When you have finished weaving, take the butterfly off the loom
	and gently push the rows of weaving to fill up the loops that are left by the pegs. Secure the loose ends of yarn by threading them under the loops at the back of your weaving.
	When you are finished you will have a basic butterfly shape. You can experiment with stripes (just leave a few inches at the end of each colour and darn it in later), or a variegated yarn with short lengths of each colour.
	Make all the pieces you want for your scene. See my article on using loomed flowers for embroidery for more ideas, and my article about embroidering on your flowers.
	To embroider your butterfly’s body and attach it to your background at the same time, make one large stitch up the centre
	Then bring your yarn out to the right hand side, slightly higher than the top of the centre stitch.
	Thread the yarn under the centre stitch
	and take the yarn to the back again on the left hand side. Secure your thread on the wrong side f your work. You now have a finished butterfly firmly attached to your background fabric. Repeat for the rest of your butterflies. You can experiment by changing the length of the body stitch, the length of the antennae, adding sequins or beads to the tips of the antennae or embroidering additional details on the wings.