A new pattern, a new challenge, and the whining cat

Wheeeeee!

I am going to be the guest blogger on the “all photo/no text” edition of CraftyPod on the 24^th.

All else has gone by the wayside.

I sell patterns on Craftsy. I’m not getting rich, but I am meeting folks from all over the planet and hopefully making some good stuff happen. That’s the goal, anyway.

I stay away from clothing patterns. I did put up the pants pattern that I made a billion of for my kids, but the rest is useful, nonsized, small craft stuff. Not so many PDF pages to collate and print.

I have a love/hate relationship with PDF’s. I love that they show up in the middle of the night. I hate that they have to be assembled on ever larger flat spaces. The Titanic 1912/2012 project left me with titanic-sized layouts, forty pages or so. None were as big as the ShowStudio McQueen jacket, which I still haven’t cut out. It’s about a million sheets and half a million pieces, none of which indicate where they go or how they are cut out). And I lost the directions.

I REALLY hate pinning through regular printing paper, and cutting it is almost as bad. It’s worth my time to trace the pattern onto architectural flimsy (thinner tracing paper on big rolls) and do that: I can see the fabric pattern through the flimsy, I can match patterns. Swedish tracing paper? Huh?

What I really love about PDF’s is that they allow all sorts of people to get their stuff out there. You don’t need an advance and a contract with a printer. You don’t need inventory (as a warehouse worker, I have a dread of inventory). You just need an idea and the ability to explain how it goes together.

Okay, a pretty girl to model the product would help.

But back to that Crafty Pod thing. How about a process series of photos? I've been toying with a culotte pattern, mostly folding origami shapes and trying to translate them into clothing. Yes, I've made the Origami Skirt and the shirt, but I wanted the ideas in MY head to make something I could wear with a swagger.

I drew pictures. 

I made more pictures.

I made a model.

This is not what I ended up with, but that doesn't mean I didn't sew one up and turn it into cleaning rags.

And another.

I drew it up in Paint on the ‘puter.

I screwed up printing it out, but I figured that one out.

I laid out the pattern. I sewed it. I made more marks.

I haven’t made a pattern just on the computer before, but this is such a geometry project, it made sense to put up and alter, even in such a blunt tool as Paint.

I redid it in Paint, printed it out,copied the pages with the matching up x’s in the corner, laid it out, numbered the pages in the same spot on each page (even the blanks, I know what happens when you don’t do that and think you’re all clever. You’re not.). I scanned them.I am trying not to knock down a forest. I will lock the cat out of the room again and lay them out One More Time.

My kids are home for the summer, it’s Father’s day and my spouse is being ignored, my cat is whining, and I am trying to keep several ideas in my head at the same time, which is hard for a 54 year old woman with a whining cat. There's still a whole lot of brainscrunching work to do; sew up the photo model, get photos, write the directions ...

And I am having a wonderful time!

And a week from now, I plan on adding one more pattern to my Craftsy store.

CulottaFolda c Ernie K Designs / SK Mascis, designer 2013

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