{"id":16331,"date":"2025-12-30T09:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=16331"},"modified":"2025-12-23T19:58:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:58:00","slug":"starting-at-last-on-the-lotus-flower-coat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/12\/30\/starting-at-last-on-the-lotus-flower-coat\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting, at last, on the Lotus Flower Coat"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/PatternCut_Watermarked.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/PatternCut_Watermarked-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"Pile of folded pattern pieces on a varnished table, pattern envelope on top.\" class=\"wp-image-16328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/PatternCut_Watermarked-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/PatternCut_Watermarked-768x543.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/PatternCut_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>You might recall that a gorgeous piece of turquoise tweed came my way and provoked thoughts of a jacket or coat decorated with lotus flowers. So, not part of the &#8220;Dreams of Amarna&#8221;, but once you have an interest in something, or an attachment to a design style, it never really lets go!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LotusCutouts1_Watermarked.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LotusCutouts1_Watermarked-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Paper cutouts laid on the back piece of the jacket.\" class=\"wp-image-16329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LotusCutouts1_Watermarked-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LotusCutouts1_Watermarked-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LotusCutouts1_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>And I didn&#8217;t find myself a Twixmas project, so rather than having a small pause, I&#8217;m moving straight on. It will be worked in the hand, so it fits the challenge of not needing the place the Christmas Tree lives, and to be honest, I&#8217;ve not been finding the last few months stressful in embroidery terms (in others, yes!) and I don&#8217;t feel I need a reboot. So, onward!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyone who attended the ThreadTalk I did for the Embroiderers Guild, or who was reading my planning for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/tag\/stellas-birds\/\">Stella&#8217;s Birds<\/a> will be familiar with my paper cutouts by now! You can see that this isn&#8217;t quite right. It looks a bit too abrupt, the spaces are maybe in the wrong places.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DesignTacked_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"222\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DesignTacked_Watermarked-222x300.jpg\" alt=\"Final design layout: one open flower and two half open\" class=\"wp-image-16323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DesignTacked_Watermarked-222x300.jpg 222w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DesignTacked_Watermarked-759x1024.jpg 759w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DesignTacked_Watermarked-768x1036.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DesignTacked_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 222px) 100vw, 222px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>This is altogether better. It&#8217;s not so abrupt, it&#8217;s paying heed to the botanical form while keeping to the stylised appearance of the original ancient Egyptian inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My intention is that the shapes will be filled with rows and rows of line stitches, chain stitch and feather stitch variations mainly, and at the moment I am planning to leave a line of untouched fabric showing around each of the elements. Once I have the thing finished, I can decide whether to fill in the gaps!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll be using a mix of threads, too, wool, silk, cotton, some plain, some variegated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You might recall that a gorgeous piece of turquoise tweed came my way and provoked thoughts of a jacket or coat decorated with lotus flowers. So, not part of the &#8220;Dreams of Amarna&#8221;, but once you have an interest in something, or an attachment to a design style, it never really lets go! And I&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/12\/30\/starting-at-last-on-the-lotus-flower-coat\/\">Continue Reading Starting, at last, on the Lotus Flower Coat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[124,272,301],"class_list":["post-16331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apparel","tag-designing","tag-lotus-flower-jacket","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16334,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16331\/revisions\/16334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}