My BB & B RR block is home!

I said "WOW" out loud as I took my first look at my Bees, Butterflies and Beetles RR block.  And you can see why!  It's packed with such lovely stitching, lacey motifs, and bugs galore!  You will notice there are no butterflies, and that was at my request, but my group made up for it with bees and beetles!  

BB&B block stitchers.

I had such a hard time trying to get these photos below the finished block photo in the last post, that I decided to do the closeups separately. 

The photo above is Janet's gold beetle.  Below, the first photo is Janet's hand dyed lace and beads. 

The second is Arlene's beetle. 

The third is Arlene's roses and seam. 

The fourth and fifth, Cathy's ladybird and beetles. 

The sixth is Janet's gold beetle and more of Cathy's beetles. 

Seventh is Janet's roses, vine and seam. 

Eighth photo shows Meg's dragonfly and the ninth is Meg's lovely piece of Bulgarian lace.  

Meg's BB&B Block

This is Meg's Bees, Butterflies and Beetles RR block after Arlene, Cathy and I have worked on it.  Nicki Lee gets it next for her stitching and then it will go home to Meg.

I added the stumpwork turquoise beaded silk butterfly and the seam it's sitting on.  The seam is made up of two rows of chevron stitch, with two fly stitches below and alternating lazy daisy and pistil stitch on top.  I added some beads in the lazy daisies and used Edmar Frost thread

On the seam above the pink lace butterfly at the top I stitched four rows of fly stitch, also with Edmar Frost and added tiny gold beads.  The butterfly in the next photo was printed on the fabric already.  I outlined it in the same tiny gold beads (#13/0) and added lazy daisy stitches and green beads on the wings.

The final patch is very pretty purple and turquoise flowers.  I attached a purple jewelled butterfly right in the middle with dark green whirly stitching and freshwater pearls.  

Arlene's BB&B Block

I had a lot of fun doing these beetles.  All but the prety one on the left are authentic shapes and  colours. I just had to make an imaginary one too.   The butterfly is stumpwork, the wings are made first and attached afterwards. 

Cathy's Bees, Butterflies & Beetles RR Block

To finish my part of Cathy's Bees, Butterflies and Beetles block, I've added a beaded butterfly, a row of herringbone and straight stitches with beads, and a row of pistil stitches under the swarm of bees.  I used Sassa Lynne #5 Perle Flower Garden variegated for the pistil stitches. This thread works very well here because it changes colour so quickly.

I'm using mostly  Delica 11/0 beads which are the green ones in the row of herringbone, and the crystal on the bottom butterfly wings and Charlotte 13/0, the pink beads on the top wings in the butterfly. 

My stash of these tiny beads has grown since I found BeadFX in Toronto.  They have an amazing selection.