busy bees: sewing project

wonder | wander | women often collaborate on projects, and our latest is the most fun one so far: an embroidery project! We got some beautiful linen shirts and are designing them together.

I'v only recently started learning how to sew again - I can hem sleeves and jeans, and sew on a button, but I have no idea how to embroider. Mom, on the other hand, can sew super fast and loves embroidery, but she likes working from a pattern instead of drawing one herself.

So of course we put our heads (and hands) together and decided to try some fun designs for our shirts. After much doodling and looking through cute embroidery examples, we decided on a few different themes. 

Most of the designs will be based on two of our favourite things: nature and food. So far we're planning on five themes: Honey Bee, Under the Sea, Dim Sum, Sushi and Shrimp, and Comic Books.

We made a checklist of elements: a list of small drawings that I would design and send to Mom to sew onto the linen shirts. As each design was finished and approved, I checked it off the list. I also did a rough map of the shirts to show where we thought the designs should go.

Honey Bee and Under the Sea were our first ideas, but I also liked drawing our favourite Chinese and Japanese food. The theme was supposed to be just sushi, not cooked food, but I love tempura and prawn katsu so much that I had to draw at least one crispy shrimp. I also love the fish-shaped soy sauce bottles in some restaurants, although I'm not sure if my drawings will translate well to embroidery.

Dim sum was also really fun to draw. I'm not quite satisfied with the steamer I drew though; Mom suggested a bigger design, full of buns, with the cover propped askew on it, and I am currently working on that. Still, I had fun drawing the xiao long bao and har gau pot stickers - my favourites!

Honey Bee was the design we were most excited about. Even though the theme is called Honey Bee, our favourite is actually the bumblebee so we decided to use it as an inspiration. It's the cutest bee (in our objective opinion) and it also has special significance to us. So I drew bees flying among flowers and making honey.

I loved drawing the bees and I wanted to draw them as simply as possible, just a little round ball with round teardrops for wings. The honeycombs were a struggle to figure out, but Mom found a way to simplify them as well and sew a beautiful pattern for the back of the shirt.

It was also really fun to do a cute little "bee dance" path in dashes to show the bee travelling along. Mom liked doing the paths in running stitch so much that she ended up doing them all over the shirt! Somehow it makes the already cute bee look extra cute and whimsical.

We're really looking forward to the finished shirt and to putting together all the shirts with their themes. It's fun to work together again and we hope to show the results soon!