Friday 16 March 2012

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...


4 comments:

  1. Absolutely fantastic :)

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  2. Bee-utiful!! Wonderful colours, love your multi-textured flowers, buzzy bees, and fab honeycomb. Such a lot of skill and hard work, well done!
    Sure it will create a buzz wherever it hangs Kate!
    Ali x

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  3. Oh wow, that's fabulous. A permanent piece of Summer :o)

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