A bee block for Annabel

For her month's theme in Cocorico, Annabel wanted blocks made with an orchard theme. After thinking about the theme for awhile and coming up with a couple of different possibilities, I settled on making a bee.

I love bees. I also have an allergic reaction to their sting so I have to be careful! But I really think they're amazing - their highly organized social structure and their efficiency at caring for their hive, working together, and making delicious honey. Of course, they also play a very important part in the life of an orchard because they pollinate the tree blossoms to help make yummy fruit for us to enjoy.

My inspiration illustration is above right. From that picture I made a larger more simplified drawing of the bee on graph paper. Once I worked on the drawing for awhile,I realized a few things:

If I tried to paper piece the legs I would probably go insane.

I needed to slightly shorten the body of the bee so it would look less like a wasp.

This was going to be hard.

Thanks to a PMQG all day sew, I had a lot of uninterrupted time to work on this block and this is what I have so far! Instead of piecing in the legs I'll be thread sketching them with black thread. And I'll embroider the antennae on as well. I'm completely nervous that I'll screw this part up and ruin the work I've already done!

This is just a more detailed look at the bee. There are a few "oops" moments but overall I'm really happy with how this block turned out. I'm especially fond of the beehive print on the bee's body!

Annabel wants to make placemats with her blocks, so I hope no one minds eating their meal with a giant insect on their mat!