I have the good fortune to live within easy driving of two butterfly houses. I was reminded of this fact while I explored ravelry this week and came across a crochet pattern from Little Birdie Secrets for the butterflies pictured here:

Butterflies have long fascinated people, and this is clearly reflected in modern crafting. When I used google to search about pages for the search for the terms “crochet” and “butterfly” there were hits at over 5 million pages. Clearly the desire to crochet butterflies is great, but as I sorted through the available designs, I decided to go with one that embraced both elegance and simplicity.

Vladimir Nabokov, perhaps best known for his fiction writing on matters unrelated to butterflies, was an avid lepidopterist who used the proceeds from his writing to fund butterfly hunting excursions with his wife.

While Nabokov’s study of and theories about butterflies were not well-respected in his lifetime, by the early 1990s advances in science supported many aspects of Nabokov’s theory of the evolution of butterflies.

While I have no strong desire to travel the world in search of butterfly specimens, I was enchanted by both the ease and charm of Little Birdie Secrets’ butterfly pattern, so I got out my Skakel 2.0 mm hook, some mercerized craft thread, and followed the directions I had found at the blog, Little Birdie Secrets.

Despite the fact that my crochet technique with small hooks and thread is a bit awkward, I made thee butterflies in short order:

Having completed the butterflies, I decided that the best home for them would be the front cover of my Kindle:

And even if you don’t want to crochet butterflies, the Little Birdie Secret website has several other patterns that are just as wonderful.