Beautiful Butterfly Bench

Butterfly Bench. Designed by Kelly Laaper, Kingston, New Brunswick, 2019.

A few years ago, while visiting the quaint little town of Saint Andrews, New 
Brunswick, full of lovely little shops and gorgeous views, I happened to enter 
a Home Hardware store and fell in love with a little bench shaped like a butterfly. At the time it was more than I could afford, and I walked away, dreaming of where I 
would put this lovely little bench if I ever happened to own it. 

As the time passed so did my thoughts of the bench. But Christmas morning of 2015, there it was, under the Christmas tree. My father had bought it for me, knowing how much 
I loved it. Now that I owned this 
lovely bench, I wanted a cushion for the seat. And I knew it had to be something special.

In 2016, I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. Suddenly my days were filled with hospital visits and treatments; I filled my time with knitting and crocheting.  Over the next two years I made numerous 
blankets, Scandinavian socks, 
knitted Christmas stockings, 
crocheted animals, and much more.

Time passed. While walking around our local farmers market this year, I came across Kate Thornhill of Sparrowhawk Studio. Her stall was filled with lovely hooked rugs and I knew that this was something I needed to learn. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

The following week three of us showed up at Kate’s home to begin our first project. After creating an 
8" x 8" mat, I was hooked. Three months later, I wanted to branch out to a larger project. And I had just the project in mind: the butterfly bench. 

Now the hard part began: I had to design the pattern. I began by surfing Pinterest, and fell in love with the look of Hungarian embroidery. This became the inspiration for my flowers, and I knew that a black background would really make the flowers pop.

The bench seat has an odd shape, and I wanted the flowers on the left- and right-hand side to mirror each other, while the center flowers would be unique and stand on their own. The words that I hooked into the piece are personally meaningful. They are from a notebook full of quotes my mother had collected before her passing. 

This project became very dear to my heart. Rug hooking allowed me to express myself in a way I had never done before. In three months, I grew from doing a very simple pot rug to this beautiful piece that I had created on my own.

In rug hooking, it seems as though the sky is the limit—don’t be afraid of a challenge. You might surprise yourself.