Bee Potholders 2 - How a project progresses

Trial and error - that's how it works, especially when you're either working with no pattern or creating your own. The potholders continue. I consulted the drawing and used a water soluble pen to draw antennae, eyes, and legs for my big bee. I tried a couple different decorative stitches on the Bernina and came up with one that suited the design, stitching the legs per the picture. I created half circles on top of the black piece of the bee to serve as eyes. And then, I did the satin stitch around the whole body.

Looking at the picture above, it looks eh. the legs are not the same length and seem to have a cattywampus placement. That alone wouldn't be a problem, but the antennae aren't quite right either. Check it out in comparison of the drawing.

I didn't stitch the wings on, but did want to see how they looked, so placed them on, trimmed them down to fit so the legs would show, and then stood back and reminded myself this was my prototype and that I get to keep this one. Argh. Sometimes things don't go perfectly the first time! The position of the legs looks even worse with the wings, but there you go. This is how a project progresses. For the next three bees, I'll follow the drawing a little closer when drawing the legs and antennae. I hope that I won't have to cut down the wings any more than just a smidgen; they should be bigger than shown on the piece above.

I'm laughing as I type this because it is really kind of funny the first time you try something and it turns out a little wonky. I'm sharing it with you to show you that you will make "mistakes" along the way and you need to not let them bother you. It's never a waste; it's always a lesson. And I'll end up with a pretty groovy potholder to use in my kitchen. What I won't do with this one is use the bee fabric for binding since I know for sure I'm keeping it. I'll use black bias binding, which will work just as fine. For an item I want to sell, I prefer to use handmade bias binding that matches the design a little better.

Hopefully, the next post will show you the one above completed and one that is a little more like the drawing. I do love the colors and like the choice of bee fabric for wings.