For my final project I embroidered a jacket. I chose a jacket because I wanted to make something that I would be able to wear. Embroidery was something I found I really enjoyed, and I wanted to see what I could do with a single type of stitch.
I wanted to create something that was important for me. The design on the jacket is inspired by one of the endgame weapons from Okami, a video game that inspired me as a kid. The pattern grew a lot from the initial in game design; I’ve always had problems with creating abstract things, so I decided to challenge myself by doing this for the final project.
Creating a design that would end up on a body was way more difficult than I expected. When designing and making the design, I couldn’t really envision it on a 3D form as well as I had hoped, which resulted in certain designs being on slightly different parts of the body. For example, I had to extend the arm design because it ended up lower than I expected. Running out of colors early on forced me to mix thread colors, which gave the pattern a different feel when looking at it close up.
It was difficult to imagine where and what to put the swirls at the beginning, and I experimented with different thicknesses of lines by adding lines next to each other, using less thread in my stitches, and doing different types of chain stitches. About halfway through the design in the back, I felt like I had a much better handle of what I was doing. I also really like how the disc ended up, with the darker red thread adding a bit of depth. I even added a bit of weaving to create a thicker effect in the center of the swirls.
Overall, I really like how the jacket ended up. I might add more designs in the future, but I did manage to create the asymmetrical design and feel I was going for.
Materials: Jean jacket (x1), embroidery thread (a lot), felt patch (x1)