Honeycomb, goldwork and Swarovski gemstone bees

Today I am going to introduce you to one of the samples that went on to become a part of my jumpsuit design for the Hand & Lock Prize. This sample was developed towards the end of my project and combines features of other samples that I had been developing for several months. It uses tambour embroidered honeycomb as a base, this is a tambour stitch which is normally used for cutwork but here I have just used it to create the pattern. Over the top of this I have embroidered goldwork and Swarovski gemstone bees. The honeycomb is then tambour beaded with pearls and square cut glass beads.

This sample became one of my favourites and I decided to use it as part of my garment design. As the theme of the 2017 Prize was celebration, I decided that black wasn’t the right colour and instead used golden honey coloured organza. The honeycomb pattern was used all over the jumpsuit and on the belt which also featured the goldwork and Swarovski gemstone bees. The bees were also used on the tulle overlay so that they appeared to be floating above the honeycomb underneath.