Looking for Purple

You see the magenta outline around the lightning forks? And the dark purple clouds? OK. Now try and picture a shade of purple between those two colours - reddish, not bluish - and that's the colour of the yarn I used for my pansies.

Can I capture it with my camera? Nope. Indoors, outdoors, morning, afternoon, increasingly random jabbings at -2 something to +1.7 something, assorted light settings, all I get is some very beautiful shades of blue, lavender and slate, and washed-out-life-is-pointless-bluuurgh.

So I went a-Googling, (ho-li-daaaaaay....) as I do, for pansies of the colour I've used. None.

I googled 'purple flowers'. Not a one. But feast yer eyes, anyway! And the iris comes from an enchanting flower blog.

Perhaps my zingy synthetic purple dye does not exist in nature, unless..... down in the depths of the ocean, where everything glows in the endless darkness.....

And that search led me, via this fella, ..not quite, but...

to Purple Dreamy and this fella! but no...

This? Nearly...

And this - almost! That bright, rich shade in the centre!

What about birds?

Oh! definitely getting warmer with

But the closest is, the sun-polished, iridescent sheen of this handsome creature.
My mother used to make beautiful needle tapestries, drawing on years of gardening, and a faultless eye for colour. The only flower she ever almost gave up on was the iris, because of the difficulty of finding an embroidery silk of the exact purple she needed. I've been reminded of this as I've ransacked Google to locate 'my' synthetic purple in nature.

Anyway. Two pansies, one made on a 3.5mm hook, and one on 4.5. Also a briar rose in the same gold and purple, but though it looks cheerful, I found it frustratingly fiddly to make, and I don't think I'll try another two-layer flower for a while. The big one's lush, but too big to use right now. The little one, though, looks delightful on my waistcoat, opposite the knitted poppy that set me crocheting in the first place. Not that you can tell from this photo, but never mind. Just as long as you know -

That slate blue? It's a purple!