stitchin' done

I am happy with the stitching on Norfolk Furrows. Having put it by for a while to distance myself from it, always a good thing with creative projects, I added a bit more and now, I feel there is enough. Just got to work out what to do next - bind with fabric and put a hanging loop or, as the Man suggests, get it framed like a picture. I tend towards the binding and looping - if you know what I mean!

Meanwhile I've been adding to Uffington, bit by bit, but have now put him to one side as well to work on bees; well, a bee. 

The homework I came home with from the embroidery group is to create a themed bee from the pattern above, with wings for goodness sake! All will be hung at the regional show day in Ardingly so I thought I'd give it a go. No harm in trying, but it's the first time I've done anything like it - it's a 3D object! 

The theme for the "challenge" was flight so they chose bees as an interpretation. There were several very fine bees at the meeting on Saturday. I can't hope to match them, but we'll see how my "bee's eye view" goes. Still in it's "pupal" stage one might say, I'll keep you posted. 

These  are little bee bodies, with the fabrics evoking the landscape the bee buzzes across. I want to couch some silver and gold threads across to represent the little bee paths that other bees see when they fly across the landscape

This is the side I've started stitching - I take photographs of things as I'm working, partly to show you, but also so I can see how things are going. You can see more in a photograph, it puts a distance between you and the object, rather like turning an almost finished painting to the wall for a while, so you can see it clearly when you look again. The open space on the left is where the head is supposed to attach.

I was glad I did this. I made the classic hurry'ers mistake, forgetting to turn the template for the mirrored half. Much turning over and marking of new outlines ensued. Then I had to patch some bits in at the tail end to create enough space for the template to turn round in, then I stitched the outline again, having done it once the other way round ..... then I put the template on to take this photograph and realised I've sewn the wrong outline in the fore end of the body!

Back to the sewing machine!

The head - not even started yet, will be in bee colours, with a bee face and beaded eyes .. bzzzzzzz