{"id":16455,"date":"2026-05-12T09:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=16455"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:18:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:18:52","slug":"starting-on-the-calyxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/12\/starting-on-the-calyxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting on the Calyxes"},"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\/2026\/03\/PlanningGreen_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"244\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PlanningGreen_Watermarked-244x300.jpg\" alt=\"Back piece of the Lotus Flower Coat, scattered with green embroidery wool\" class=\"wp-image-16438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PlanningGreen_Watermarked-244x300.jpg 244w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PlanningGreen_Watermarked-768x945.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PlanningGreen_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 244px) 100vw, 244px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Once I had my flowers in, I scattered every green thread I had over the pattern piece, and performed a triage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I ended up with this. It&#8217;s not terribly informative, now I look at it, if you aren&#8217;t me, but it gives you a sense, perhaps, of a variety of tones and types of thread. Some of them are a little heavy and need to be deployed cautiously, some of them I don&#8217;t have much of and need to be careful with for other reasons.<\/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\/2026\/03\/CalyxDone_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"266\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxDone_Watermarked-300x266.jpg\" alt=\"Calyx of the main, white flower on the Lotus Flower Coat\" class=\"wp-image-16442\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxDone_Watermarked-300x266.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxDone_Watermarked-768x681.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxDone_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>There was much thought needed about the calyxes and stems. Did I want something contrasting, more solid? Did I continue in the same style, maybe tweaking my stitch choice? What about stitch direction? Should I keep to the verticals? Contours? Horizontals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can see here what I ended up with.<\/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\/2026\/03\/CalyxClose_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxClose_Watermarked-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Close up of the calyx\" class=\"wp-image-16443\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxClose_Watermarked-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxClose_Watermarked-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CalyxClose_Watermarked.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The two outer leaves have the stitch lines running horizontally, but a little echoing the contour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The leaf that is curling out towards us has lines following the edges and lines following the central vein, and then I left gaps. I hope that creates a little the sense of the highlights on a strongly shaped leaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the calyx itself, I have used colour and stitch direction to create the sense of the leaves wrapping around one another, and the dark colours of the major shape turn further and merge into the stem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, working so far, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once I had my flowers in, I scattered every green thread I had over the pattern piece, and performed a triage. I ended up with this. It&#8217;s not terribly informative, now I look at it, if you aren&#8217;t me, but it gives you a sense, perhaps, of a variety of tones and types of thread.&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/12\/starting-on-the-calyxes\/\">Continue Reading Starting on the Calyxes<\/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":[124,301,22],"class_list":["post-16455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apparel","tag-lotus-flower-jacket","tag-stitches","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16455","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=16455"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16502,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16455\/revisions\/16502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}