When I was young, I used to like collecting caterpillars and mullion leaves and keeping them in old ice cream tubs with netting over the top until they turned into butterflies (cabbage whites, I think most of them were). I think I was trying to watch for the exact moment when the butterfly hatched from the chrysalis, but I don’t remember ever managing that.
I’ve always liked the theory that butterflies were originally flutterbyes, but that metathesis caused people to call them butterflies. The OED, source of all linguistic knowledge, seems to think not. The Old English was buttorfleoge, for which they have a reference from c.1000. Shame. I prefer to call them flutterbyes; makes more sense.
I’m not sure I’d want to become a butterfly, necessarily, but it was a simple and quick pattern to stitch. Even on linen, which isn’t always easy to stitch. The pattern came from issue 295 of CrossStitcher, though I can’t now find it to credit the designer.
As per the suggestion, this was turned into a little bag, with a pink (probably poly-satin) lining. I was quite surprised to find a suitable scrap of pink in my stash. Usually in such instances it’s never quite right, and you either have to compromise or go in search of something better.
Life Ever Crafting 