Until May 31/2015, midnight Pacific time, use the code ‘earth’ to get the pattern 50% off!

This cute little playset will help you teach your young children about the life cycle of Monarch butterflies and how the shortage of one little plant—the Milkweed wildflower—can impact a whole species. I hope this project will help raise awareness of this issue and encourage people to plant Milkweed: plant a little or a lot, and the Monarch Butterflies will thank you by visiting your balcony or garden! I will donate 50% of the profit from each pattern to the David Suzuki Foundation to help them fund all their environmental programmes. I hope you’ll go to their website to see all they do--including their Monarch conservation work. As an older, single woman on disability benefits it is difficult for me to donate to organizations I feel really benefit our planet, but designing knit & crochet patterns and donating from their sales is one way I can accomplish it!

Materials
I used Red Heart Comfort and Red Heart SuperSaver yarns, and a 5mm hook for everything except the flowers—I used a 4.5 mm hook for the flowers. I didn’t weigh the yarn separately; altogether it uses about 75g/3 ounces yarn, weighed after completing it. The Chrysalis bag with flowers included weighs less than 50g/2 ounces.

Gauge & Size
Gauge is not really important for toys! Neither caterpillars nor butterflies in nature are the exact same size—toys need not be, either!

The Chrysalis bag is about 6 inches high/4 inches across not counting the handle. The Butterfly is about 6 inches across the wings at the front, and the body is about 4 ½ inches long. The caterpillar is 4 ½ inches long and ¾ inch across. The leaf is about 5 ½ inches long and 2 ½ inches widest part. The flowers (made with 4.5mm hook instead of 5mm) are about ½ inch long, ½ inch wide.
You can adjust the size by using thicker or thinner yarn and larger or smaller hook. If you need any help or spot any errors, please contact me.

You may make items from this pattern for personal use, as gifts, or for charity. Items may not be made to sell for your own profit. I designed this Playset to help raise funds & awareness for a non-Profit organization.

NOTE: I am not associated or affiliated with the David Suzuki Foundation in any way. The “Life of a Monarch Butterfly Playset” is unknown to their organization and is solely my idea. The funds I donate from selling my pattern will be a personal donation made just as you may go to their website and donate to the Foundation. If at any time I stop donating 50% of the profits from pattern sales of this design I will remove the statement of intent to do so from the pattern and sales listings.