A few months ago I went on a workshop by Laura Edgar to make a seascape, she uses scraps of fabrics, often torn or distressed and lots of free-style stitching to create wonderful textile art. I finally finished my seascape recently…

Laura brought a lot of samples of her work and one of them was a bumble bee. I loved it! I decided to try and make one. I took the general shape from one of her pictures then rummaged in my stash for yellow and black fabric.

I started with the basic shape in an almost black quilting cotton, it has a bit of variation to it which I liked. I then overlay it with yellow batik stripes. The black looked a little too flat so I overlaid some black lace. I had a piece of light organza for the wings. I tacked it all down then started rummaging for extra textures.

I found some black feather boa in a drawer. I cut off a snippet, trimmed all the long feathers so I was left with the downy bits, I then stitched it down to the upper body, giving it an extra haircut where needed, I love the effect of this .

I added some scraps of black lace which has beads and sequins on to the next stripe. The yellow bottom has some loose yellow silk strands with lots of straight stitches over the top. I tried turkey stitch at first which leaves tufts of thread but I couldn’t get the effect wanted, I left the stitches in for extra tuftiness!

The wings were a little light, I added a layer of lace and then some smoky grey organza which I think looks much better.

I’ve still a fair bit to do, but this is my bee so far…

I’m getting a nice bit of variety with my bees!

If any one fancies making one of these bees Laura runs a workshop to make one!