The way the jacket is made the front panels fold back to form a lapel effect and this exposes the lining. I decided to embellish the exposed area of the lining with Sashiko embroidery in the Higaki (Cypress Fence) pattern. Wanting to break up the monotony of the brick like pattern I added a few small flowers I drew myself.
When the Sashiko was complete I could see that the flower outlines would definitely need some further defining. They were lost in the background of Higaki patterning. (See top portion of the photo). Before work began I suspected this might be the case and had a backup plan to use fabric paint to fill in the flowers. A practice piece made me realize that fabric paints were just not going to work.
After a couple more false starts, experimenting and casting aside various ideas, I came up with the idea of filling the flowers in with a solid blending stitch known as "long and short stitch". I chose a range of golden yellows so as to not clash with the background Sashiko. As I was working the blending stitch my husband mentioned that they looked like marigolds. I agreed. With the addition of a centre of deeper gold french knots I think they look just like this particular marigold variety.
