The design begins to come together ...

I think it’s fair to say that ‘coming on in leaps and bounds’ described the progress I made with the design for The Butterfly Effect Project in April 2024. All the different elements seem to come together into a cohesive design, and I was absolutely thrilled at the enthusiasm and excitement that The Stitchbook Collective members showed for the project.

A ’lightbulb moment’ for me was remembering the scene in ’The Wizard of Oz’ when Dorothy first landed in Oz, and the black and white footage turns into full technicolour. This was to become the theme for an interim exhibition.

• The dress will be made from members’ felted squares together with wave of butterflies on netting .

• The entangled bank will be made from a chain of slow stitched tubes. Decorated with flowers, butterflies and leaves on lapel pins.

• There will be a monochrome section with trellis and kunin felt flowers.

So in summary, Members and ex-members were asked to make the squares for the dress, the slow-stitched pieces for the beads (kits will be available later in the year), kunin felt flowers and any loose butterflies for the netting.

The fundraising kits for butterfly and flower brooches were made available to EVERYONE from 15th May 2024.

Below is an image of the first of the members' squares to arrive back with me. I was blown away by how well they were turning out!