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Design: Urban Butterflies

Butterfly patterns are very common. Every textile designer has probably made a design using butterfly shapes or the beautiful patterns in their wings and on their bodies. The colours are so varied, but not just the colours, the fantastic colour combinations too.

If you want your butterfly print to stand out from the rest, you need to find a way to look at the subject matter with fresh eyes. I decided to give the design an urban feeling so I redrew photos of skyscrapers and tower blocks and incorporated them into the butterfly shapes. I deliberately kept the distorted perspective of the buildings.

I like to use architecture in my designs. I took photos of the glass ceiling of the British Museum and used them in my winning design "Mesh Up" on my Competitions page. If you look carefully you can also see 2 butterfly prints that I designed on my Fashion page. My "Butterfly Collector" print is one of my most popular and has been bought by happy customers as cushions or as single fabric pieces.

This design, called Urban Butterflies is available from my Paisley Power Spoonflower Shop for $17.50 + tax + postage. This is the price for pure cotton but it is available on 19 other fabrics including satin, silk, lycra and jersey.

You can also order cushion and hats made from the printed fabric. In the slideshow below you can see photos of both. The bucket hat is fully reversible and is made from 2 of Patrick's print designs. The inside is made using the orange mosaic bandana design, the outside is made from  the Urban Butterfly print. You can choose any combination of Patrick's designs for your own hat. He will be happy to make any hat to order with your specifications. You can also Patrick's friend Donna wearing the hat at the Brushfest music festival in Southend, Essex, UK in August 2016. I think you will agree, it's the perfect hat to protect you from the summer sun and to look very stylish all day and all evening. 

In August 2018 my new baby niece Florence Smith received her "Urban Butterfly" cushion, which I sent to her from UK to Australia. Her Mum Zoe sent me a photo of little Florence looking very happy on the cushion.

Let your mind fly away with this unique modern urban textile design.

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