• Home
  • About Megan
    • Student Gallery
  • Writing
  • Video Training
  • Knitting Fork Projects
  • Categories
    • Baby Crafts
    • Baking
    • Book Review
    • Camping
    • Cooking
    • Crafts
    • Etsy
    • Gardening
    • Guest Blogger
    • Holiday
    • Kid Crafts
    • Knitting Fork
    • Needle Felting
    • News
    • Photography
    • Recipe
    • Sewing
    • Teaching
    • Travel
  • Sponsorship Info
  • Contact
  • February 4, 2023
Gardening Recipes
 
Craft Projects Photography

Felted & Framed: The Monarch Butterfly

January 25, 2011 By radmegan 14 Comments

I’m a sucker for framed insects, display cases of fossils and skeletons suspended from ceilings. Curio cases of natural history will hypnotize me for hours, so when I visited Melbourne Australia and came across Wunderkammer, I nearly died, was embalmed, stuffed into a jar, and placed on a shelf. (Or, if you like, I nearly died and went to heaven.) 
While needle felting is still relatively new to me, I’ve been having lots of fun pushing my own limits and boundaries. I wanted a project that would force me to practice blending multiple colors of wool roving, and I wanted to see how precise I could get with fine lines. What better inspiration for this project, than a felted and framed Monarch Butterfly! 
Felted Natural History
I started by blocking out a basic butterfly shape in yellow wool roving. As I matted the wool together, I began to blend in orange around the tips of the wings. 
A Starting Shape
After working in the orange, I turned my piece over and felted the “other side” of the body, then trimmed away the excess wool. With a well blended base, I started to work on the “front” of my butterfly exclusively, so that I had more control over the precision of the lines. I added thin black lines on the upper and lower wings, accents of white and yellow, and finished up by adding the center “body” of my butterfly.
Adding the Body
Once I was happy with the look of the butterfly, I began to trim away all of the frayed edges with my sharpest pair of scissors.
Trimming
Before boxing up my Monarch forever, I decided he needed to enjoy the world beyond my craft room…
In The Sky
So I let him flutter around…
Fluttering Felted
Enjoy the sunshine…
Smelling the Flowers
And smell the flowers…
Before I snatched him up and brought him inside. 



Boxed

It may seem cruel, but I know there are lots of felted predators out there who would like nothing more than to snack on him, so he’s really much safer among my collection of fossils, pressed seaweed and oddly-shaped seed pods. At least, that’s what I keep telling him.


FacebookTwitterGoogle+PinterestShare

Related posts:

Beaker: The Most Easily-Frightened (Needle-Felted) Muppet Ever. IMG_1588+copyNeedle-Felted Pug: Mom’s Best Friend Needle-Felted Peeps: Pattern Now Available Fetled Baby Elephant 5342300672_1ff85b46f1Newly Needle-Felted Owl Pal 5325469753_5dcf394847Needle-Felting Project: Bluebirds

Filed Under: Crafts, Needle Felting Tagged With: butterfly, craft, felting, frame, insects, natural history, Needle Felting


Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /webroot/r/a/radme001/primary/www/wp-includes/class-wp-comment-query.php on line 399

Comments

  1. f*bomb. says

    January 25, 2011 at 9:36 am

    I can NOT believe you did this!!! This is AMAZING! The details are incredible- I just can’t get over it. Can you please do one in blue? They are huge in size and just BEAUTIFUL. http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/p/pi/pigivigi/485509_blue_butterfly.jpg

    Reply
  2. radmegan says

    January 25, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    For you Farrah? Yes. You got it!! Thanks for the sweet words!
    xoxoxoxo
    radmegan

    Reply
  3. everyone calls me bon bon says

    January 25, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    Wow! This is so adorable and unique. Just found your blog, and I can’t wait to browse through everything. I’m feeling inspired already:-)

    Reply
  4. radmegan says

    January 25, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    Ooooh thanks everyone calls me bon bon- and welcome! I’m so glad you found me! Hope you stay a while.. enjoy!!

    xo
    radmegan

    Reply
  5. Renata says

    February 10, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    Wow! It’s perfect, I love it! And I am glad to see it had a nice life before it was pinned and framed :)

    duzentasideias.blogspot.com

    Reply
  6. Gabrielle says

    February 10, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    I saw your butterfly on Craft and just had to come over and say hi! I love the look of biological specimens too (makes me feel all warm and fuzzy for my days in university) and it is great to find a way to get the look without the guilt :)

    I am new to needlefelting too but have fallen head over heels for it. I wanted to pass on an idea (as yet untried by me) that my local wool guy gave me: Quilters have this stabilizer called “Wash-Away”. The webbing dissolves away in the wash. Apparantly, you can needlefelt to this to get almost transparently thin pieces, and then wash it and the webbing dissolves away. Imagine felted butterfly wings as delicate as the real thing!

    Gabrielle from Tiny Apartment Crafts

    Reply
  7. radmegan says

    February 10, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    Thank you Renata!

    And thank you Gabrielle!! That is just about the most exciting thing i have heard all week! I will look into “Wash Away” and am so excited to try it! Thank you so much for the comment- and for the exciting tip :)
    xoxo
    radmegan

    Reply
  8. superstitches says

    February 11, 2011 at 7:34 am

    Amazing felted butterfly. It makes me want to pull my needlefelting project out and try it again.

    Reply
  9. Trekky says

    February 11, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    This is amazing! I love the display with pins!

    Reply
  10. radmegan says

    February 11, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    Thank you so much superstitches and Trekky!! :)
    xoxo

    Reply
  11. Vicki says

    February 22, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    gorgeous, I’ll have to try this on my embellisher, on a larger scale perhaps

    Reply
  12. Madeleine @ NZ Ecochick says

    October 16, 2011 at 1:50 am

    Wow that’s amazing!!! I LOVE it

    Reply
  13. Lisa says

    January 2, 2015 at 9:35 am

    May I ask where you got your long map pins to pin him down with? I can only ever find really short ones!

    I love this!

    Thanks,
    Lisa

    Reply
    • radmegan says

      January 23, 2015 at 11:14 am

      Hi Lisa, Sorry- they were in my craft stash! Wish I could remember!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badgeShow more posts

Follow Me

  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 

Find posts on this blog about…

Instagram

Get posts via email

Welcome!

I'm a crafter, cooker, gardener, and photographer.
Read More...
Learn Craft Photography with Radmegan

Friends

back to top
© Megan Andersen Read. All rights reserved.
Interested in using my photographs? Contact me.
Web design by Hearts and Laserbeams