Simplicity 2645 Jacket View A. A Roadside Flower Story

The jacket work was inspired by the common roadside weed of chicory and its periwinkle colour.(The first in perhaps a couple in the "Roadside knoxious weed series")


Personally, I LOVE this colour.  When it comes to flower colours I am attracted to blue and purple colours, and the chicory weed was indeed the perfect fit!
I also intended the fabric I bought to go with a jacket, but didn't have enough length, so I decided to make a blazer instead.
There is also an actual groundcover with the common name 'Periwinkle' or its latin name Vinca minor which is also a good fit for the colour subject.  But I thought since both were successful and prolific growers, it wouldn't matter which to pick.
Starting off with the botanical subject, getting photos of this thing is clearly not an issue as they grow everywhere they have the chance, so here is a true colour in daylight:

Chicory taken at local college

And here is the flower by the fabric...pretty close fit!

Since periwinkle is sort of on the border of blue and purple, your eyes can definetely play tricks on you in artificial light.  Sometimes, going by memory or your gut instinct can work as well.

And, this project was the perfect fit for ribbon embroidery.  There are actually 2 layers of flower petals on the real subject, and I figure, I can do up to 10 petals on each layer.

This is something to think about when picking colours of threads for your finished work:

Do not use pictures of flowers that seem malnourished. It does throw things off a bit.  It happens.

So onto the pattern itself.  I chose view A because it has the flounces for the cuffs and collar, plus I do not have any blazers with this feature.  I also want the chicory plant to go on the right side of course because of women's garment rules. Oh, and I bought this when it was on sale.
The thing I like about this design is that it has a Kate Middleton vibe to it. Very classy.

Plans for the embroidery work:

1. Buy 2mm-4mm wide ribbon for the petals. 
2. Use true green colour DMC for leaves and stems (like I don't have enough green!)
3. Free hand design as it is simple to draw from pictures
4. Work 2 layers of petals as mentioned before.  (Do an actual count on real life subject)...8-10
5. Put work on right side of garment as women's garments lap right over left
6. May put a insect on the flower if I want (optional...but realistic)

And that should cover it.  The rest is busy work.  Any fuddy duddy areas I will document on how to do better if a need arises.

Free hand drawing of chicory plant

Stem stitch done with 2 DMC single strands of  floss on right front

Leaves finished.  Real subject has mostly stem structure
Smaller leaves exist at the plant's nodes

This project is a simpler one than the others I have done and here are supplies and colours used:

Stems and leaves : DMC 3345
Flower petals : purchased matching poly ribbon 4mm wide.  Didn't order YLI silk ribbon. Wait time too long right now. Perhaps another day, another project.  Used a straight stitch.
Needles used for ribbon embroidery: chenille needle.
Stamen colour :  DMC 3839

Chicory flowers with one layer of petals, 2 layers were too bulky

Finished right front with most of the work buried by the collars.  Oh well. 
Still works.

I ended up not putting a small insect on the flowers like the one in the picture.  I also didn't put the rolled fabric rose on the right side of the collar in the pattern view A, but if I did, would use another method of a fabric rolled rose made out of plain weave silk which would have worked out, perhaps for something else....a purse yes, of course!

Ok, onto the next project!