Bee Scarf

 

Another mad idea last week - to embroider a scarf with bees as a birthday gift for a family member who is a beekeeper. I had bought a rather lovely hand-woven scarf from the Handspinners and Weavers Guild with the intention of embroidering it with threatened Australian flora and fauna during the bushfire crisis, but when that crisis was overtaken by floods, my design seemed inappropriate. It occurred to me last week that I could turn this into a useful and appropriate gift by embroidering bees - another threatened species.

After playing around with a few designs I settled on a larger than life bee on each end of the scarf, using wool.

Some stems of green added context and I found a variegated grey/mauve/pink that worked well for wings. The wings don't show up strongly on the light woven background - but neither do bees' wings show up strongly against the sky!                              

I really enjoyed working these. It took a couple of days - the first one at the Tuesday Stitchers Group at the Guild. The two ends are similar, but not identical. I was interested in impact ahead of geometry.

It's a bit of a mad project for an Australian February birthday gift. Hopefully the recipient will get to travel to colder climes later this year.

The wrapping for the gift was a bag made from some fabric purchased from a limited run of cotton from Missy Rose. 

There's a lot of satisfaction in a project like this one - with a strong sense of purpose, a deadline and a recipient in mind. Note to self.