Butterfly Pincushion Embroidery Pattern

It’s the first Monday of May which means it’s time for me to share with you this month’s free embroidery pattern. With Mother’s Day coming up soon as well as for other gift giving occasions throughout the year, I thought it would be fun to design a pretty Butterfly Pincushion Embroidery Pattern.

After all… for those of us who embroider, sew and/or quilt, one can never have too many pincushions!

But don’t worry, if your mother or whoever you’re making a gift for doesn’t do any of those. The side panel can be stitched on it’s own and turned into a beautiful bookmark.

Butterfly Pincushion Embroidery Pattern

The Butterfly Pincushion Embroidery Pattern includes three pieces… the top with the butterfly and flower pattern, the side with the vines and flowers pattern and the plain bottom piece.

Cut one each of the top, bottom and side from off white wool felt.

The side piece includes the ¼” seam allowance (indicated by the dashed lines) where you’ll join the short ends to create the tube for the side of the pincushion. There is no need to add seam allowances to the top or bottom circle or long edges of the side piece.

Transfer the pattern to the felt pieces and stitch in whatever colors you choose.

I used the tissue paper method to transfer mine. Simply trace the pattern onto tissue paper, pin the paper to the the cut out felt piece and then stitch through the lines. Once you’ve finished stitching, gently tear away the tissue paper.

Kristyne from Pretty By Hand has a great tutorial that shows perfectly this tissue paper method for transferring embroidery patterns to felt.

Here’s a list of the floss colors that were used to stitch the butterfly pincushion embroidery pattern as pictured:

• Butterfly wings: Sky Blue DMC 519
• Butterfly body: DMC Black
• Purple flower on top and side: Med Lavendar: DMC 210
• Green stems, vines and leaves: DMC 581
• Pink flower on the side of the pincushion: Light Rose DMC 3326
• Variegated flower on the side of the pincushion: Northern Lights DMC Thread #4215

The wings and antennae of the butterfly are done in backstitch. The butterfly body is satin stitched.

The flower petals, stems, vines and leaves are all backstitched.

To embroider the flowers’ centers, start by stitching the circle in French knots, then fill in the circle with more French knots.

Once the top and side of the butterfly pincushion are embroidered, sew the short ends of the side together to form a tube. Press the seam open.

Sew the top to one edge of the side tube using a blanket stitch.

Repeat for the bottom, stuffing the pincushion with polyester fiberfill before closing the bottom seam.

Click the link below to get May’s free embroidery pattern.

Butterfly Pincushion Embroidery Pattern downloadable PDF.

If butterflies aren’t your thing, you could use last month’s April Showers Embroidery Pattern for the top of the pincushion instead. Or browse through the embroidery archives to find something you prefer.

STITCHERY LINK PARTY #139

For those who are newly subscribed or are visiting for the first time, on the first Monday of every month I host a link party in which I invite you to share your hand embroidery projects.

If you’ve never linked up to a link party before and would like to join in, I’ve written a quick tutorial on How to Link Up to a Link Party. It provides step-by-step instructions for linking to this party (or any other link party you might like to participate in.)

The rules for the Stitchery Link Party are simple:

1. The project can be anything as long as it includes hand embroidery stitches in some form. Such projects might be but are not limited to redwork, blackwork, goldwork, bluework, (etc), counted cross-stitch, crazy quilting, crewel, silk ribbon, pulled thread, hardanger and sashiko.
2. Link directly to your blog post, not to your blog home page. You’re also welcome to link to a Facebook or Instagram post, if it is set to public.
3. If you happen to sell your embroidery or embroidery patterns, feel free to link up to a blog post you’ve written about a project you’re selling, but No direct links to shops or websites selling things.
4. This will be a curated link party. In other words, if a link does not conform to the three simple rules above, it will be removed.

The next three are more requests than rules. They are by no means a requirement to take part in the party:

1. Please link back to the Stitchery Link Party with a text link somewhere in your post or on a page where you list your parties.
2. As well, please share the love and visit one or two (or more) of the other links and take time to leave a comment.
3. It would be wonderful if you decided to follow me but it’s not necessary in order to take part in the link party.

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Don’t have time right now to download the pattern? Save the Butterfly Pincushion Embroidery Pattern by clicking on the Pinterest button underneath this post.

And of course, I’d love it if you shared it on Twitter and Facebook as well. 🙂

I would be so pleased if you chose to share by clicking on one of the buttons below!