Last year the 'Lacemakers' Circle' held an exhibition of laces with the theme "Flora and fauna". There were some exquisite examples of all types of lace and I was honoured to have two of my pieces of tatting included in the display.
I had already created a buddleia as part of a bookmark and added butterflies in the same colour to make it more 'bookmark' shaped. Well, the butterflies didn't show up very well so I decided to cut them off and use the buddelia as the centre for this picture. I Googled 'British butterflies' and then from all the images I settled on three that I 'd try to interpret in tatting. The 'Orange-tipped' and the 'Purple Hairstreak' butterflies are quite near but I wanted to add some contrasting colour to 'the mix'. Eventually, for the third type of butterfly, I combined the markings of a 'Tortoiseshell' and a 'Painted Lady.
