Tiny Wings in Progress: Making the Mini Bee Charms

There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over my desk when I’m working on something this small. This week it was bee wings.

If you follow along, you know my mini bee badge charms have been one of my favorite things to make — but a bee isn’t really a bee until it has wings, and getting those right has been its own little adventure. So today I cleared off the cutting mat, pulled out the embroidery floss, and got to work.

Here’s my workspace mid-session: my trusty green cutting mat (the grid lines are surprisingly handy for keeping tiny pieces uniform), a length of soft white cotton floss, my tiny knitting needles, a tapestry needle for the finishing, and the little pink snips that never leave my side. And in the middle, nestled together like cells in a honeycomb, the first batch of knitted pieces — coiled up and waiting for some bees to put them to use.

I love a photo like this. It’s not the finished, polished product shot. It’s the in-between, the part where the magic is still happening and nothing is glued down yet.

Knitting at this size is fiddly in the best way. Each wing is small enough to sit on a fingertip, which means there’s no hiding a wonky stitch. The cutting mat earns its keep here: I line everything up against the grid so the pairs come out matched, because a bee with two mismatched wings is a bee with character, sure, but I’m going for balanced character.

Once the wings are done, they get paired up and attached to the little bee bodies — those round, cozy, fuzzy stripes that make these charms so squishable. Then the hardware gets added, and suddenly a handful of cotton and a few hours of fussing turns into something you can clip onto a bag, a badge, a lanyard, or a jacket and carry around all day.

That’s the part I never get tired of: the moment a pile of tiny components stops being “parts” and becomes a bee.

This batch of wings is destined for a fresh set of mini bee badge charms heading to the shop soon. If you’ve been waiting for the bees to land, keep an eye out — they’re nearly ready to fly.

Until then, thanks for letting me share the messy, wonderful in-between. It’s my favorite place to be.

🐝 Want one of your own? The mini bee badge charms restock soon — and the rest of the charm collection is always buzzing along in the shop.