Ashlee Brotzell Designs releases June Butterfly square for blanket series

A tiger swallowtail is now the sixth square in Ashlee Brotzell Designs’ 2026: A Year of Butterflies series, and that matters because this is a project built on momentum, not a one-off motif. June Butterfly landed on May 31, 2026, as another large square in a monthly blanket journey that gives crocheters a new butterfly to add each month and, eventually, a full themed throw if they keep going.

The appeal is practical as much as it is visual. Brotzell wrote June Butterfly so it can be made with interlocking crochet or overlay mosaic crochet, and every design in the series comes with both written instructions and charts. That gives makers a clear choice: build with the structured look of colorwork and follow the charts closely, or work through the interlocking method, which Brotzell says creates two layers of mesh at the same time. Her technique page also notes that overlay mosaic crochet uses dropped double crochets marked on charts, and that she is using a Tunisian mosaic crochet approach this year to avoid cut ends while keeping the overlay option available.

That construction detail is part of what makes the series feel worth collecting. A worsted-weight square in the yearly butterfly project comes out to about 20 inches, so each release moves the blanket forward in a way you can actually see across the couch, not just in a queue folder. The pattern is sold on Brotzell’s web shop, Etsy and Ravelry, where June Butterfly is listed at C$4.00 CAD, and the eBook bundle is set up to update month by month for readers who want the whole set instead of buying each square separately.

The butterfly itself is a smart subject for this kind of blanket. The Eastern tiger swallowtail, Papilio glaucus, is the state butterfly of Alabama, Delaware, Georgia and South Carolina, and the U.S. Forest Service says it is commonly seen from spring to fall. The species typically has two broods in the north and three life cycles in the southeastern states, with a wingspan of about 3.1 to 5.5 inches. That broad, recognizable shape translates cleanly into bold crochet geometry, which is exactly why this square stands out as the series reaches its sixth stop and the blanket starts to feel less like a sampler and more like a finished plan.