My Design Process

I gather inspiration – usually photos and illustrations.

I make a schematic, a graph of the stitches (If they are fiddly and I need to position them well) then a swatch.  A. Big. Swatch.

I wash and dry the swatch, measure it, and weigh it.  If the garment section is in the round, then the swatch must be too, back and forth does NOT predict in the round for me.

I might make a stitch chart in Libre office chart for the whole garment, in all sizes. (There is some bouncing back and forth between the spreadsheet – also Libre office –  and the chart – they inform each other.)

I collect the numbers of the sections that are the same (highlighting them in color works better for me than starting and ending rows, MUCH better.)  I make a spreadsheet listing the row numbers that go together, then write out the instructions for the various sections, in Libre office document.

Sometimes I’ll outline the process on the written pattern, then fill in the rows from the spreadsheet.

Once the writing is done, I pull out my notebook to remember how to use Inkscape to make a chart and schematic.

Then I pull out my Latexa notes, to remember how to put a pdf together with it in KILE.

Then I send the PDF to a tech editor.

Meanwhile, I’ll have made my sample to send off for photography with a mood board to show what I’m into for style of photo, and a list of what I need for advertisements.

Once it all comes back, I post it on Ravelry, here, Patternfish and Craftsy.

I also make up advertisements for Ravelry .