Making a Goldwork Bumble Bee

Yesterday, I spent a day learning the intricate craft of Goldwork Embroidery!

Goldwork is a style of embroidery using metal threads to create opulent and rich designs and is often used for military uniforms and royal robes. In fact, for Queen Elizabeth's Coronation, a team for skilled embroiderers worked constantly on the robes, taking shifts and sleeping on bunk beds in the studio.

I, on the other hand, am used to sewing on a much larger scale and any embroidery I have attempted has been using bold colours with 'child-like' designs' so something this ornate was pretty alien to me!

We had a wonderful tutor, Kate Sinton, who started as an apprentice at the Royal School of Needlework and has helped to produce numerous garments for royalty, the military and the clergy. She brought a long a couple of examples and I was speechless!

We started off stuffing a felt body with wadding; making your sure bee had a well stuffed body meant that it would really pop out. We then used purl purl (a singular coil of metal beads) to outline the body before cutting up 'chips' and sewing them on the upper body- this was my favourite part as it was sooo glittery! After this we had to cut out the individual strands, in black and gold, to create the bee's stripy body. I think this (cut work) was the hardest part, as you had to cut every strand to the nearest millimetre, so that the delicate metal didn't bow or snap! ...definitely time for lunch at this point!

After lunch it was all much easier, simply backstitching with gold thread to form the legs and lower antenna and then just couching (securing a thick thread, in this case Japanese, by looping it with a thinner, 'secret' thread) the wings and plunging the ends into the calico. Finally I couched the top antenna with the purl purl and fastened the head (a black bead) and I was finished.


I am so proud of my bee- I have already framed him!
I’m not sure this is a method that I will be using regularly as it is really time consuming and I am not sure I have the patience but it was a brilliant experience and I came away from the day literally BUZZING!!

You can book yourself on a similar course at
http://www.royal-needlework.org.uk/shop/index/58
or my day was at http://www.clementinesshop.com/