Thursday, July 19, 2012

Butterfly Quilts by Diane McGregor

From Calgary, Canada, teacher and quilt artist Diane McGregor designs for her family-owned company, Castilleja Cotton. Castilleja is the Latin name for the Indian Paintbrush flower, which blooms in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Diane's home province.  The vibrant hues of this flower reflects Diane's passion for the colors and fabrics of her gorgeous art quilts.

Stained Glass Butterfly, 23 x 33 by Diane McGregor


Like all butterfly quilts on this page, this Stained Glass butterfly quilt pattern is available for purchase at Castilleja Cotton. It is made with the easy-to-learn fusible applique technique, which produces beautiful, quick results. (There are some good online tutorials for fusible applique, like the one at Connecting Threads.) Here, Diane has chosen radiant analogous colors of grape, red-violet, lavender, and magenta, which produce a great contrast against the icy blue-green background. However, you could also use a warm palette such as scarlet, rose pink, deep orange, and apricot against a lemon yellow or gold batik background.  For some help in learning to select fabrics, check out the Castilleja Cotton blog.

July Butterfly,  16.5 x 16.5 by Diane McGregor


Do you love to make textile art, but have only limited space for sewing ?  If that is the case, you can still turn out projects that make a high impact on your decor and display your personal taste in color and design. This July Butterfly pattern with its deep purple shades against a tropical, aqua and green hibiscus-splashed background, evokes memories of summer days near the ocean or lake. By using several other of Diane's patterns for dragonflies, flowers, mountains, or sea life, you can create a series of accent pillows or a wall montage of individual blocks.  Over 500 patterns on a wide range of subjects are available at Castilleja Cotton.

Artistic Butterfly, 19 x 19, by Diane McGregor


We love Diane's designs, and we think this butterfly is especially pretty ! Here's a wonderful way to use small pieces of your favorite brightly colored stash fabric in all sorts of unique color combinations. The muted, subdued, colors of the background really help the high-chroma, glowing colors of the butterfly pop right out. All of Diane McGregor's butterfly projects take small amounts of fabric and make beautiful wall hangings or quilts which will brighten up your home.

Image credits:  Images are shown with the generous permission of Diane McGregor.

3 comments:

  1. Those are really beautiful vibrant colors with her butterfly's, one of the prettiest I've seen.

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  2. Que preciosidad, nos encantan como han quedado las mariposas. Un beso.

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  3. The are all beautiful! The colors are gorgeous and the designs are divine! I am hooked! Thanks for introducing me to her work!

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