back to the silk butterflies

I apologize for not posting yesterday – I had a crazy busy day!  I’ve been back at work in the studio and so here’s part two of the origami butterfly tutorial:

The next step is to fold the point up and press.  Place the fabric under a weight to cool for a couple of minutes.  It helps to set the crease and makes your life easier!

This step is kind of tricky to explain – open up the last fold you made and fold the top layer of fabric up towards the top of the “wing”.  The bottom of the fold should end at the crease from the last step.  Repeat the same fold: it should look like this inside:

Sorry about the blurry photo – somethings are hard to photograph with one hand

Did you remember to press the butterfly with lots of steam & the let it cool under a weight?  Good!

Take the top layer of fabric and fold it down along the small triangle in front.  Repeat.  This forms the lower wings of the butterfly.  Press, steam etc – you should know the drill by now

Iron the butterfly using lots of steam and then pinch the center together.  I’ve pinned it to my ironing board to cool & let the shape set.

I’ll show you the final shaping using thread & we’ll do some embellishment in the next post.