We are introducing new shape to our quilting collections with the Honeycomb quilt and we couldn’t think of a better way to introduce it than with bees! This shape naturally lent itself to these beautiful designs. Carol Lantis, our art director, drew the artwork and I think she did a fantastic job. Each of the designs coordinates perfectly, blending bees with flowers and other design elements to create a beautiful quilt. Instead of a collection with just large designs she added free motion quilting elements, sayings and folded fabric blocks that compliment the main designs. When it came time to digitize the designs I chose to do the designs using all hand stitching techniques to allow all of the detail of the drawings to show. I used random stitch lengths with multiple passes so that the outlines and the shading of the designs would not look uniform. I loved the way the designs stitched out; we used a natural colored linen for the base with cotton fabric for the borders. The hand stitch style and the linen compliment each other really well. You can combine all of the different block styles to create a quilt of any size; you will love these designs as well as the new shape!