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Historical Sampler – The Waspish Bee

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12 December 2008

Historical Sampler – The Waspish Bee

I cut my turkey knots.

wasp_2

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’.

wasp_3

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.

wasp_1

karenswhimsy.com

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

wasp_paper

www.backyardnature.net

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

wasp_4

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

wasp_5

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.

wasp_6

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.

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4 Comments:

Blogger The Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure said...

I like him! But I like wasps. I find them lovely bits of engineering.

One thing I've tried that might help put the yellow dots in the right places is to do the whole thing in the solid brown color and when you are done, add loops in the contrasting color right in with the regular turkeywork. For me, that helps put the new color in the right spot. Turkeywork once cut and brushed out and trimmed sometimes moves the ends a bit and you get colors in odd places, so this may not really help. You might have to just mark turkeywork as an imprecise stitch and add the dots of color with a French knot or two on top....

If that'll work, which I'm not sure of. Don't know how French knots will look on top of turkeywork.

When he has wings, you'll like him better.
Jane/Chilly Hollow

Friday, December 12, 2008  
Blogger Paula Hewitt said...

i think the wasp looks good - the wings will make a big difference

Saturday, December 13, 2008  
Blogger MeganH said...

Hi Jane -
That's what I did! For the mid-section, outlined in yellow turkey, then filled in the middle with the pinkish colour.
And even the stripes on the abbomen didn't come up as well as they did on the steel blue/chocolate waspish-bee.

But thankyou for the suggestion.

I'm not that worried. No, I don't think Turkey Knots are good for precise colour, at least not for me.

Both : I've done the legs, and he looks more waspy (photo to come), and yes, the wings will help too.
But what I've done is made a fluffy wasp - bees are fluffy, wasps aren't. I think this is the basic thing bothering me.

He'll just have to be 'special'. I don't want to take those turkey knots out again!

Saturday, December 13, 2008  
Blogger MeganH said...

Jane - you meant 'loop and cut one colour, then loop and cut the other colour', didn't you?

Saturday, December 13, 2008  

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