Stumpwork Round Robin - Cobi's block

Cobi's block for the Stumpwork Round Robin was fairly straight forward once I got going.  Seeing Gerry's work up close was wonderful, she is such a wonderful stitcher.  Her birdy in the nest is a work of art, Cobi you are so lucky.  Gerry suggested putting in a bee's skep as she was going to do it herself, but I got the chance to. I have actually got here some of the steps that I went through to get the desired effect.

First of all you need to pad it. This was done using plain ole' padding, one smaller then the other with the smaller one on the bottom.

Tacked down on the compass points. 

Then I covered it with tan coloured felt as seen in this photograph, and as my next step was to needle lace over the top of it. I used a lovely varigated cotton that a swap friend sent me.

I then proceeded to needle lace the entire padded area.  This photo is the completed area.

This next picture is of me working on Cobi's block, taken by a friend who I stitch with on Mondays.

I'm actually doing the needle lace on the bee's skep here.

Had to make my bee's first, then their wings.

Making the bee's wings, this is just perle 8 cotton, and buttonhole stitched on chiffon over the top and then cut out.

I only added 3 bees, but they seemed to be the element that took the longest time, the wings along took an hour each to make.

Next was the beetle and the vein holding the bee skep. The vein was wrapped wire using that furry wool that you see around.

My beetle wasn't ment to look like a real one, he did look a bit odd though, he has two weird beady eyes, and his wings are bullion stitched and buttonhole surrounds. His body was just wrapped thread, and chain stitch legs.

TTFN

Arlene