The Creative Process: Patterns

Well, another day another dollar. When you're balancing a full-time career with a creative (and hopefully profitable) craft venture, the creative process can be more like creative torture. The thoughts start racing: what if my 2-hour window of awake-time tonight is totally wasted on feeling uninspired, or worse, watching a rerun of "House"? What if my kiddo stays awake until 10 when I promised an order would be mailed tomorrow at 8 a.m., and it needs 3 hours of work? What if I'm a hack?

It all comes down to the "What if I'm a hack?" question. How can it not? Look at etsy's beautiful and skilled crafters and you'll ask yourself the same thing. But when it comes to patterns, I think I am on solid footing.

There is a process that I've become familiar with for my pattern development, and it goes something like this:

1. First, I see something I like and want to improve. It's usually of the basic criteria like "dress," or "skirt." I make a mental note and sometimes send myself a note.
2. I then sketch the shape on whatever's handy. This is usually the back of a Target receipt.
   
3. I bring the sketch home and draft up instructions. Typing up the instructions before having a pattern or even putting needle to fabric helps me figure out what shape the pattern pieces actually have to be. (I've done it both ways: on both the Jaime Sundress and Eryn reversible skirts, I actually made the garment first. But I learned from these I would rather think it through before making it.)
4. I then draft up pencil-drawn pattern pieces, usually taken from whatever similar garment I can get from my kiddo's closet. I modify, tinker, alter, and put the pattern pieces on her butcher paper. (We had an incident a couple months back where she unrolled an entire butcher paper roll from Ikea; it's now cut into workable sizes for me to make pattern pieces.) Then I cut the fabric.
5. I take pictures along the way, at every step. It slows me down to a very uncomfortable pace (I'm a rusher, so sue me). But it ensures that I'm thinkign about each step. I don't mind screwing up in my own home, but the sheer idea of how mortified I'd be after screwing up a step that someone else tries inspires me to take it slow.
6. I then match the photos to the steps: was I right? Did I implement it in the same way or different. I do final text tinkers.
7. Then comes the fun part: doing the real pattern pieces in the pattern. This takes a little skill and a lot of patience because I'm determined to get them just right. Straight lines are easy, but very few of my patterns use right angles. I hunker down for the challenge and dive in with curves and angles.
8. Dumping the photos into the pattern is the final reward. A few touch-ups to the cover art usually take me forever, because I'm not a good finisher. (Just ask my second-grade teacher Mrs. Hallett.) But I do it. And you'll note I often give myself announced deadlines. Otherwise I'd never get anything done. (Just ask my boss, Gary.)

Posting the finished product to etsy, or packaging it for sale at a local shop, never feels like the relief it should. But when a new pattern sells for the first time, I get a little chill each time. I finished something! I did it!

Here are a few others who've made the creative process work for them on etsy. My fave patterns:

• Coffee Cosies by agreensleeve. Perhaps adaptable for cans too, for those of us in hot climates?
• Candy Wrapper Bags by bagladymomma. Make a statement, with the smell of chocolate.
• Journal Clutch by keykalou. All of her stuff is delicious.
• Max the Owl Plushie by ginia18. Owls are a love of mine, a love that is not shared by kiddo.