I’ve stitched two more bees over the last week, they were handbag projects and didn’t take long at all.

First to stitch was another cross-stitch one, I wasn’t planning to do anymore cross-stitch ones but a friend from Skipton Stitchers gave me this one…and it’s only little!

I changed the darker thread on the honey comb as the one provided was very orange. It’s a cute little bee!

The second bee is a whitework one. It’s another design by Sarah Homfrey I stitched her blackwork one a couple of months ago and this is basically the same design but stitched in whitework. I’ve just seen she does a crewelwork version too…

I’ve not done any whitework before, so I was interested to try it. I traced the design onto linen with a fine frixion pen. The first part to be stitched was the legs, they’re done with a fine chain stitch which is then whipped. The wings were couched in silver thread and then filled with eyeley stitch. I really like the wings, they’re nice and delicate, though my couching isn’t as perfect as I would like.

The stripes on the body are buttonhole stitch with some silver straight stitches in between. The head and the thorax are satin stitch and long and short stitch, the antenna are back-stitch whipped with silver thread.

It was surprising quick to do…it is only little though! I really like this bee, I’m thinking of putting these little bees on a double page in hexagons, I’ll have to see how size pans out.

I’ve just two more bees to stitch!