How to Embroider a Bee (Beginner Hand Embroidery, Step by Step)

Trace the bee onto your fabric with a water-soluble pen. A simple shape with a round head, a rounded body, and two little wings is all you need. Get it centered in your hoop so you have fabric to grip on every side.

Start the black head with a small chain stitch. Come up, go back down in the same hole to make a loop, and catch that loop on your needle before you pull. Follow the traced circle all the way around so you end up with a neat black ring ready to fill.

Now pack the head solid with chunky French knots. Come up through the fabric, wrap the black floss around your needle a few times, hold the wraps snug against the fabric, then push the needle back down close to where it came up and pull through slowly.

Keep working knots side by side until no white fabric peeks between them. Crowd them together on purpose. That density is what gives the head its rounded, slightly fuzzy look instead of a flat patch of thread.

The body is built from bullion knots, which are the coiled stitches that give the bee its plump shape. Come up, go down a stitch-length away, then bring the needle back up in that first hole and wrap the floss around it several times.

Measure the wraps against the gap so the coil will fit, then hold the wraps with your thumb and ease the needle through. Lay the coil flat and add a tiny couching stitch across it to lock that curved shape in place. Build up the black sections this way.

Switch to yellow floss and work the stripes as long bullion knots, using a full strand so the bands come out nice and chunky. Wrap in one steady direction so the thread lies smoothly, measure the wraps, then pull the needle through.

Before you set each coil, rearrange the wraps with your needle tip so you do not end up with a skinny end and a fat end. Couch the band down with a small holding stitch, then repeat, alternating yellow bands between the black sections all the way down the body.

Give the bee its face with a stone-white or pale grey floss. Instead of pulling the thread all the way down, come up through the head and form a small loop on the surface, then catch and tack that loop down with a tiny stitch.

It settles into a neat little eye shape that sits right on top of the black. Work one on each side of the face, keeping them level with each other so your bee looks alert rather than cross-eyed.

Work the two wings in white or pale grey with fine chain stitches, filling each wing shape you traced earlier. Keep the loops small and even so the wings stay light and papery next to the dense body.

Angle both wings up and back from the bee's shoulders, matching their size and lean so they mirror each other. A slightly open, airy fill reads better here than a packed one, since real wings are see-through.

Finish the bee with a thin black thread, using just one or two strands so the lines stay delicate. Outline the two curved antennae coming off the top of the head, then add the slender legs down each side of the body with a small backstitch.

These fine lines are what pull the whole bee together and give it that ready-to-fly look. Once you are happy, rinse away any leftover transfer pen with a damp cotton bud and let it dry in the hoop.