Time to Vote!

Today is voting day for Flip This Pattern.  Go vote for me!  Okay, okay, vote for your favorite.

In case you didn’t check them out: here they all are.

All kidding aside, I thought I’d share a little more about the process I went through with these creative projects.  After all, you’ve seen what I ended up doing yesterday already!

I realize that when I write about the finished product, it can seem like I just made design choices and brought them to life.  A simple point A to point B, if you will.  That’s not how it goes at all!  So here is how it did go. Abridged version otherwise we’ll still be here tomorrow…

1. Receive the pattern. Stress out.  What if I just bit off more than I can chew? What if it’s a disaster?  What if everyone hates it? What am I going to do?  Agh! I have no ideas!  Why don’t I have any ideas?  I usually have tons!

2. Realize that souricette 1 needs a Spring coat.  There.  That’s what I’m doing.  A coat.

3. Jot down some notes about coat.  There’s no machine knit fabric in it.  And, at this point, no time to machine knit a whole coat.  Forget the machine knit.

4. Cannot let go of the machine knit.  I want this project to have my mark on it and that means I have to make fabric.

5. Tunic!  With machine knit accents!

6. Souricette 1 doesn’t actually need a tunic.  She needs a coat.  Crap.

7. Fine, already.  I’ll do both!

8. Fabric.  I need fabric.  Canvas for a coat, right?  Ooooh, I could get organic canvas!  Hmmm, souricette 1 might prefer interlock.  But isn’t that a little light?  She won’t wear it if she doesn’t like it…  Let’s have her choose.

9. Interlock.  I knew it!  Well, at least the coat will be lined.  Two layers of cotton is good enough for Spring, right?

10. Oh!  I actually need to order the fabric!  Okay, then.  Let’s get souricette 1 over here to choose something.  Scrolling through the page, she says she knows what she wants.  I try to get her to look at the other possibilities further down the page.  She humors me.  (She does that a lot.) When we’re through, she gives me her choice.  It was that first one she saw and liked.

11. Order fabric.  Plus some more that I just needed. Two possible contrasts for the main coat fabric.  And some of that Laguna stretch cotton I’ve been meaning to try.  Navy blue because I use a lot of navy blue jersey. It’ll work as a lining for the coat.  And taupe.  It looks like it’ll match pretty well with the coat fabric.  Good for the tunic.

12.  I forgot the yarn!  Too late to order now.  Besides, I have no clue what I would order.  Lessee.  I have bamboo.  It’s really thin though.  The yellow might match the coat fabric.  Try it out.

13. I can’t run Windows on my Apple!  (My knitting machine program runs on Windows.) I need to upgrade something.  I don’t have time for this. Hand manipulated stitches it is, then.  Get going with my stitch pattern and knit up that yellow bamboo.

14. Too thin.  And the yellow doesn’t really work.  What else do I have?  Yellow cotton-linen.  That’s a better match and it’s thicker.  There we go.

15. Souricette 1 comes to check out my progress.  She isn’t sure about that yellow.  Yeah, well, tough.  It’s what I have that matches the fabric you chose.  Learns that the tunic will be taupe.  Wrinkles her nose just enough for me to realize she will never ever ever wear a taupe tunic.

16. Honestly, I wouldn’t wear a taupe tunic either.  So taupe lining, then?  Navy blue tunic?  I guess.  Let’s just get sewing.

17. Right.  I need to do my pattern modifications before I sew.  Pick a size.  Two sizes, actually.  Okay. Let’s modify.  Tunic is easy.  Now, making that coat double breasted.  That hood comes really close to the center front.  Not a lot of leeway for the overlap.  But I like that big hood. Small overlap then.  All the way to the edge of the hood.

18. Cut fabric.  Oh.  I had enough taupe for the tunic but not for the modified coat.  What now?  I have that white knit in the stash.  That’ll be the sleeve lining.  No one needs to know.  (Except I told everyone…)

19. Sew up the coat.  Wow, size 8 is really long.  Not to souricette 1’s liking.  She tells me where to cut it off.  That’s kinda short.  I’ll add a couple inches.  She’ll never know.

20. Does it choke you?  (It isn’t even close to choking her but she has a thing about clothing close to her neck. ) No?  Good.

21. Almost done with the coat!  Buttonholes.  I hate sewing buttonholes on knits.  But that’s the look I want.  Okay.  Buttons first.  What do I have? Not enough of any one color.  I’ll have to go buy some.  Or maybe combine different colors of the same button?  I could do that!  Let’s ask the souricette…

22.  She said yes!  Now, which buttons?  If I use these smaller ones, I can do a true double breasted front.  But I want bigger ones.  These big ones would work in a single column.  But I wanted double breasted!  Oh… Maybe a zigzag!  Yes!  I need to ask the souricette again.

23.  Good to go on the zigzag!  Let’s do a bit of contrast at the sleeves.  Done.

24. On to the tunic.  I have one day to get this done.  I might not sleep tonight…

25. Souricette is sick of trying on the tunic.  It’s only the second time!  Must make sure it doesn’t “choke” her.  Check length.  Knits cooperating, good.  I do need more practice though…  And… I’m done? Before dinner?  I must have done something horribly wrong somewhere…

So… Have you voted for me your favorite yet?