Take some hexagons...

Before Christmas I spotted these card hexagons in a craft shop.  They immediately reminded me of the very little sewing I was taught at secondary school when we made a small patchwork purse.  I bought them on impulse and then had a think about how to use them.  I have a bit of a thing about bumble bees and I've wanted to make some bee themed textile art for ages.  So, naturally, hexagons = honeycomb!

I chose cotton in lovely bright oranges & yellows and really enjoyed using the techniques I learned in about 1982 - and hadn't used since!

I made two flowers by needlefelting all kinds of interesting fibres to a piece of felt, stitching it into a flower shape and adding seed beads to the centre. 

The bees themselves were fiddly to do.  Firstly the brushed cotton black stripes were stitched on to the yellow fabric.  Then I stitched the bees to the background, trapping some shimmering wings in place and using a little stuffing to pad each bee out.  I like the visible stitches around the bees - I think they add to their bumbly fuzziness!

This piece involved a lot of hand stitching, although I used my machine to sew the patchwork and greenery on to the black background.  Et voila...

Hearts

Wet felting is great fun and you can create the most beautiful things, but I find all the rubbing really hard on my hands (what a wimp!) so I don't play around with it very often.  I have, however, come to the conclusion that felt is the most wonderful fabric on the planet - it is versatile, so easy to sew with and, best of all, it doesn't fray!  Simple sheets of machine made felt have made a great backing fabric for these hearts.

In a perfect world I'd be backing these with beautiful Harris Tweed, but I looked at the cost and it would mean a fair an investment on my part and a higher retail price to pass on to my customers.

I've made a few hanging hearts with three dimensional, fluffy animals.

Here's another use for those old maps I keep talking about!  

The trees are nice and fluffy, made from gorgeously soft silk laps.

And here are a couple of boats for all you sea lovers!