Coloring on Fabric

  I have been working on this little project for quite a while and kept putting it away because I was trying to embroider lots of little bees on it and they were not turning out as good as I had hoped.  The other night I made the decision to take out all of the embroidery and try playing with coloring my bees with crayons.  I spent a good hour carefully removing all my embroidery which is not quite as simple as ripping out a seam.  Then I ironed a piece of wax paper to the back of the fabric where I wanted to draw a bee, for stability.  I used only 2 colors a yellow for the body and a gray for the wings.  I then took a piece of printer paper and ironed on top of the colored bees, this melted the wax and the excess was absorbed by the paper.  I then used the same black permanent marker that I use to make my quilt labels and drew in all the details.  The whole thing took me less than a half hour and I love the results.  It should wash and wear well as all my quilt labels have been holding up to lots of washing and the color from the crayon really soaked into the fabric.   I also tried my hand at making this little paper pieced bee in the corner which was trickier than I anticipated so I decided to leave it at just that one bee.  I have not decided what to do with the other 3 corners, but I just might do some fun quilting in the corners or applique some flowers.

 I got a crazy idea to make the backing for this table topper from hexagons thus going with the bee theme.  It probably took me longer to cut the hexies than to piece them together.  I had just watched a Quilt Show episode where this was done and having machine pieced hexies before I decided to give it a go.  I love the way this turned out so much I am thinking of making 2 toppers from these instead of sewing them together.  I am a little concerned also about quilting through all those seams, but I will give the hexie fabric a good press and starch and then decide.

Enjoying the wintery weather!

Ferne