Bumblebee on a Daisy Cross Stitch Pattern

About this bumblebee cross stitch pattern

A round, striped bee with a big smile sits on the yellow center of a daisy, its wings up and its antennae curled. The flower stands on a short stem with two leaves and a tuft of grass, and a little blue cloud floats in the top corner. Everything has a bold black outline, so the shapes read clearly even at this small size.

It’s a cheerful piece for a nursery, a child’s room or a baby-shower gift, and small enough to finish in a few evenings. The small and mini patterns include other little designs, such as the Crowned Seahorse. It’s in both our cute patterns round-up and our spring patterns round-up.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 10“ x 12“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 24 DMC colors, about 24 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 310 Black (582 stitches), B5200 Snow White (450), 762 Pearl Gray – Very Light (252) and 973 Canary – Bright (252).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Intermediate because of the color count rather than the size. At 2,299 stitches it’s roughly 25 to 40 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour, but 24 colors in a design this small means many thread changes. Black and Snow White alone cover 1,032 of the stitches, so most of the work is in those two.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Stitch the black outline first. Its 582 stitches give the bee, the petals and the leaves their shapes, so every color after it has a clear edge to fill up to.
• Sort the single-stitch colors. Six colors are used for just one stitch each, mostly as tiny shading on the bee and the flower. Circle them on your printed chart before you start.
• Do the cloud in one go. The cloud in the corner is made of pale blues (162, 3753 and 827) that look alike on a floss card. Stitch it as a separate block so you’re not switching back to it later.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 3.9“ x 5.2“ (9.9 x 13.2 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 3.4“ x 4.6“, and on 18-count at 3.1“ x 4.1“. For the 14-count version, an 8“ x 10“ frame leaves room for a wide mat.

At this size it also fits a 6-inch hoop, or the front of a handmade card.

What’s in the free PDF

• A cover page and a one-page overview with a preview of the design
• The chart, split across as many printable pages as you choose, in color or black and white, with a symbol for every DMC color, center lines, a mini-map showing which part of the design each page covers and a color key on every page
• The thread list: DMC number, color name, number of stitches and skeins to buy for each color
• The finished size on 11-, 14-, 16-, 18- and 28-count Aida