We’re in the middle of things here.  The boring middle. I bet you didn’t even know it. It’s true though. Lots of neat things coming up over the next month or so. I can’t share them yet and it’s killing me.  Because these are fun projects and cool things. However, it isn’t up to me, so we’ll just have to wait out the boring middle.In the meantime I’m working on turning some projects into patterns. Like this one. I’m almost done with the writing and the diagramming. Two more complicated diagrams and I’ll be ready to get photos.I’ve been thinking a bit about my process lately. It isn’t something I give much thought to under normal circumstances. But I’m starting to think about it in relative terms. Mostly, because I have a tendency to think most people are like me–that they create the same way I do, get ideas the same way, etc. I suppose we all have this tendency to default everyone to our “normal”.

Some of the things need to be mulled over a bit more before writing about them. For now, I thought it would be a good exercise to show you one way that my process works. For this bag, it started with some doodling. I have several Moleskine journals for this kind of doodling and recording. I wish I could say they are all nearly full but that would be a lie. A big fat one too.  They’re woefully thin on doodles and sketches. However, good things pop up in there. Like this.

I had no visual image of the bag when I started. I just began sketching lines. The lines turned into the bag. The bag took on some shape, got some personality and finally looked like something I could interpret into fabric. More sketches followed but these were the technical things–what would the pieces look like, how many, rough sizes, etc. From there, it went to the cutting table and the simple pencil lines became a three dimensional bag in colorful fabrics. 

All of that is the easy part. For me at least. It’s the pattern writing part that seems to drag. Switching brains like that isn’t always easy. I would much rather get back to the fabric and discover the next project. I can hear it even now, chattering in the background.