Buzzy Goings on at Bee Crafty Bidford: Sally DT

Hi there! Thought you might like to see a step by step for my embroidered Bee fabric wall hanging.

I began by stamping the Bee in versafine clair onto a piece of calico. A stamp press is a good idea as the magnets help to keep the fabric still.

I removed it from the stamp press, put it into a small embroidery hoop and began to embroider it. I used 2 strands of embroidery thread for all of the bee's body and legs, completing the white and yellow stripes first before beginning the black. With the white tail I added a few strands of grey for shading. I just used varying lengths of satin stitch. It doesn't need to be particularly neat as it gives the impression of the bee's fluffy coat.

I then embroidered the legs in the same way.

For the eyes I used a sparkly black thread and stitched french knots. This thread was quite a bit thicker -the eqivalent to about 4 strands of regular 6 strand embroidery thread.

For the wings I found some sheer organza style ribbon (if you can find one that doesn't fray that is great!). I cut a piece that was big enough to cover the wings and dipped it in some watered down blue acrylic paint.

When it was dry (air dry as some of these ribbons melt very easily), I traced the shape of the wing through it using a pencil, cut it to size, then stitched it in place using a single strand of fine silver thread.

Once the embroidery was finished I took it out of the embroidery hoop, cut a circle of white felt and blanket stitched in yellow around the edge.

I sprayed a 6x6" square of calico with a light spray of lemon gloss spray. When this was dry I placed the honeycomb inkable over it then sprayed lightly with cheddar gloss spray. I stitched this to a piece of hessian using back stitch before attaching the bee panel to the middle with 5 or 6 small stitches around the edge.

I added a paper flower using a brad bottom left and frayed the edges a little.

I used the plain hanger and painted it with white gesso. I added a piece of the mdf pop-out honeycomb that I had trimmed to fit and painted with gold paint. In each section of the honeycomb I added some glossy accents swirled with a shake of Pretty Gets Gritty Apollo explosion powders.

I used some white fabric tape to attach the hanger to the panel.