Bee Honeycomb Embroidery Design, Machine Embroidery Pattern, Instant Download

A woman who runs a small honey stall at her local saturday market wrote to me last spring saying she'd been searching for months for something that wasnt just a cartoon bee slapped on a white background and this was it. The design is a loose scatter of hexagon cells, different sizes, floating at angles across the fabric like they just landed there, no tight grid, no repeating rows. One big cell on the upper left holds the bee, cream background inside so it actually reads like its sitting in an unfinished cell, black body, bright yellow abdomen stripes, sage-green wings stitched in directional satin that shift a little depending on the light. All the surrounding cells are either solid amber-gold tatami fill or open cream-white, every single one edged in that burnt orange border that ties the whole thing together. Density sits at 783 stitches per square inch so the filled hexagons land solid and even on cotton twill or canvas without going stiff. Hoop with a firm cutaway stabiliser because the satin wings need solid backing or the edges start to lift after a few washes. If you want to stitch it on linen add a water-soluble topping over the tatami areas to keep the fill rows crisp and flat. Skip jersey entirely, the burnt orange outlines lose their corners on anything stretchy. Stitch the 3.5-inch on a denim shirt pocket and it fits just right with room around it. Pop the 7.5-inch centered on a canvas apron and the amber and cream two-tone really does the work on its own. Use medium-weight cutaway as your underlay base on poplin if you want the bobbin tension holding without extra bulk showing at the back.

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