This favor was made for Lord Faelan ua hEogain when he fought for me in tournaments. The favor was made similar in design and style to Gaius’ favor, only a good deal larger and with different materials. This favor measures 10 ¼” by 6”, and as it was intended for use as a fighting favor was made out of cotton. It is once again a counterchanged bee on a field of blue and yellow halved down the middle. I used pre-washed blue and yellow broadcloth cotton for the exterior, white cotton broadcloth for stabilizing the embroidery, and black broadcloth cotton for the interior of the favor.

The bee was embroidered directly onto the cotton with two strands of blue, yellow, and black DMC cotton in a chain stitch, which looks practically machine-made. I was not and am still not very good at free-hand stitches, and tend to fall back into the uniformity borne from long years of doing counted work. While this can sometimes be a good thing, it doesn’t work so well when the stitches are supposed to look more randomly placed. The bee’s legs are done in stem stitch.

One other note about the bee is that her antennae are also done in stem stitch but with 8 strands of my hair. I don’t know why I remember that number, but it took that many strands to make a line thick enough to be seen. This was a specific request by Faelan and looking back at it now it’s pretty cool. However, I remember it being close to impossible to execute as the strands did not want to bond with themselves like regular thread would. After this project, I promised myself I would never again do embroidery with my own hair.

The pictures on this page were taken by myself on 9/22/06.