Mystery Sewing Challenge ~ Morpho Butterfly

Morpho Butterfly inspired dress

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click the link and buy through it, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. All opinions are 100% my own though.

I belong to a group on Facebook for crafty bloggers (art, sewing, etc) and one of the bloggers, Amy, of Friends Stitched Together, decided to organize this round of a little challenge for any crafty/sewing blogger that wanted to take part. The Mystery Sewing Challenge.

The basic premise is after being assigned a mystery partner, we had to assign a theme for the other blogger who then had to design an item based on that theme. It’s a friendly little challenge, no prizes or anything, so it’s more of a personal challenge to go out of your comfort zone I suppose. It was a little tough. It was hard enough just coming up with a theme that would hopefully be interesting and inspiring for the other blogger let alone coming up with ideas once I got my own theme. 

SUGAR AND SPICE PATTERN BY PEEK-A-BOO PATTERNS

So what was my theme? The Morpho Butterfly/Rainforest! (Morpho butterflies live in the Rainforest so in case I couldn’t think of anything for the butterfly I had a broader category to fall back on. Thanks Jessica for the theme!)

So I had never heard of the Morpho butterfly but after a quick Google image search I realized that I had seen pictures of them before. They are a gorgeous, brilliant blue, and I happened to have the perfect Kona cotton in my stash!

My little butterfly

At first I thought about making a skirt with faux butterfly wings (kinda like this)  but then decided I wanted it to be less of a dress up skirt and more of a real skirt to wear. So then I decided on a cute little twirly skirt with layers of chiffon to make it flowy and mimic a butterfly’s movement but I figured the layers of chiffon would just hide the beautiful blue colour. Then I was testing a cute twirly and flippy skirt that would have been perfect for what I was picturing that would work without chiffon but since the pattern isn’t being released until next week that idea was nixed as well. 

I go through this same thought process almost every time I tackle a project. (Even for test projects I have to debate fabric choices for a few days).

So I changed tactics and decided to do a dress with flutter sleeves. Ha! There are many flutter sleeve dress patterns out there but the perfect one for me was the Sugar and Spice (affiliate link) from Peek-a-boo Patterns. The morpho butterfly’s wings are edged in black and the Sugar and Spice has side panel details as well a small, square yoke that worked perfectly by making those pieces in black.

I knew I was playing with fire by making a blue dress for my pink and sparkle obsessed daughter. So I found her this pretty SPARKLY scarf (it’s part of Salwar Kameez outfit my friend gave me) that she ran around with for pictures. (Also the reason for the pink leggings she had to keep on wearing, one day soon -I hope- this child will decide she likes other colours. I’m waiting!)

After I finally had come up with that I thought I should make a raincoat as well to complete the outfit. (Hey it rains in the Rainforest right?!) But the only raincoat pattern I own needed to print out on something like 70 pages and it was running late and I just didn’t have the time to spend on putting  together that pattern. Another time!

The outfit didn’t turn out exactly how I envisioned it. Next time I’ll try less writing down and drawing out my ideas and spend more time sewing them. I had really wanted a whole rainforest inspired look but the dress is all I wound up having time for. 

If you want to see a top I made with the Sugar and Spice (affiliate link) pattern you can go here. It’s a cute pattern!

Check out the rest of the challenge looks: