Necessity is the mother of invention. I was repairing a fire-damaged garment by covering a big burn hole with a crocheted flower appliqué, and I wanted to add a crocheted butterfly appliqué because it would be a design enhancement. When I couldn’t find a pattern I liked, I had to devise my own.

I crocheted two larger concentric circles in three colors and two smaller ones in the same three colors, and knitted the body using an i-cord tube. The head is the first round of the larger circles. Sew everything together and crochet a single crochet edging around the outside of the wings with a bit of chaining at the upper and lower corners. Chain stitches for the antennae.

Use whatever yarns and hooks you like, but I used Wollmeise DK and a 2.75mm hook. The dimensions of my butterfly are 4.75” across the widest expanse of the wings and 4.5” from the top of the head to the bottom of the body.

The pattern is part of a blog post telling the story of the salvage operation. The pattern is toward the bottom of the post, which isn’t all that long and has lots of pictures.