Historical Sampler – The Waspish Bee

I cut my turkey knots.

And discovered a problem.

Looking directly from above, you can see the steel blue stripes, which lighten up the motif.

But looking at the sampler in general, you get this very dark ‘splotch’.

I gave him some eyes and legs anyway, before deciding to start again.

Note : I do not recommend removing Turkey Knots. It takes awhile.

Also, since I was going for a wasp, rather than a bee , well, they have different shapes. The wasp has that narrow waist.

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I wanted a wasp with as little yellow as possible (since there was already so much yellow and orange in that area, and one without black, since I’d just made that mistake)

I came up with a paper wasp, indigenous to England

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I choose threads that were a little lighter than I wanted. Turkey’ing them seems to make them darker.

The trimmed and sculpted wasp was still a bit unclear in it’s outline….

so I added a split stitch outline around the edge, slightly under the outside Turkey Knots, to give more definition.

Here, he also has seed beeds for eyes and the thick part of his lower legs done.

The remaining legs will be done in feather stitch with fewer threads to make a more delicate line.

I’m disappointed that the pattern didn’t come up more clearly – particularly the outline of the yellow in the mid-section.

I’m going to do his detached wings as two pieces (not 4) as the smaller set are just too small, and will be horribly fiddly. You can see the outline of the small set drawn on the ground, particularly on the left side.

I won’t be putting on the wings until much later, but I will add in his antennae, as they will be easy to keep out of the way. I’d buttonhole some wire in brown.

The wings will also be in mid-brown.

I’m still not happy with the colours of the body. But if I try to go darker, I end up matching the calendular. Any darker than that is too dark.

I don’t know if I like him or not. Maybe when he has wings.