What I Have Been Doing

For the last week and a half, I have pretty much dropped everything droppable to work on preparing swatches and sketches for a design proposal with an April 6 deadline. The process has involved:

- some flipping through magazines, catalogs and websites to try to get a feel for what's current in the way of garment silhouettes. (I know the classics. I'm not always up on the trends.)

- doodling several pages of "concept" sketches, with somewhat general notions of possible pattern stitches, construction and finishing methods; taking skill level needed into account (this particular proposal is for beginner-intermediate level projects); also taking into account that these will need to be graded for several sizes (how long are the pattern repeats?), also taking into account the question of how difficult will it be to write comprehensible instructions.

- swatching and ripping and swatching and ripping to develop pattern stitch combinations/edge treatments/construction and to check their finished appearance and behavior. (Discard some ideas along the way-try different ones).

- washing and blocking final versions of swatches for presentation.

- preparing finished sketches with notes about style, construction, yarn used and possible substitute yarns.

I ended up with five pattern possibilities. I would have liked to have had more, but these need to go in the mail by Monday (from here, even Priority Mail can take up to three days), and I still have one finished sketch to go, a cover letter/formal proposal to compose, copies to make of everything. So between an appointment with the accountant today, a social engagement tonight, work at the library tomorrow.... All I can say is, it's a good thing the weather has been rather cold and damp. Not too much temptation to go out and wander in the yard, even though I know the weeds are going to town.