Mythology Monday : Summer 2012 DAL Inspiration and Submission

I am going to try to actually participate in and complete a project for the Ravelry Group Design-A-Long (DAL) for Summer 2012. The theme for this quarter is "Mythology" and the Mood Board, assembled by Alyoops can be found here.

 I wanted to participate this go-round as I am trying to generate some self-published patterns and this seems a great way to practice those design processes! I am in the process of preparing some article and design submissions to various submission calls as well, though, so I am aiming for a relatively quick and easy project. An accessory of some sort should do nicely. I have decided to use an illustration of "Idun and the Apples" as my inspiration - specifically the crown of leaves she is wearing in her hair. I will design a full-circle headband with a branching leaf lace pattern in crochet - joined at the top (or bottom) with some ribbing to give sizing flexibility.

  "Idun and the Apples" by James Doyle Penrose via WikiMedia Commons 

 First, I took a quick look through Ravelry at some of the headband offerings and crochet leaf ideas - both to gather inspiration and ensure that I am not reinventing a recently created wheel. Now - off I go to sketch and swatch...

   

 That is my original sketch and my initial swatch to work out the leaf lace pattern using Aunt Lydia's Fashion Crochet Cotton Size 5 in pine and a G (4.00mm) hook. 

My next step will be to use InDesign to create a submission proposal in my design submission format... (practice makes perfect... or at least better... hopefully!) I will post on that process another day!

Pattern Template Redesigning

Today I have been switching my pattern template from Microsoft Word to Adobe InDesign. I am taking it from a double-half-portrait-page landscape orientation to a full page portrait orientation. Whilst I am keeping my purple and green colour scheme, I am limiting the use of large blocks of colour and photos to the cover page and possibly the additional information and project gallery pages at the end of the pattern, so that the pages that NEED to be printed out are relatively simple and print well in B&W or grayscale.

I am starting the process with my Gathery Up Scarf pattern, then I will try to format my free snowflake patterns and my Tea Set pattern. I will attempt to make charts for these patterns on Adobe Illustrator... a new challenge for me to learn how to orient the charts in the round and then attempt to indicate multi-level (as for the Irish Rose) or 3-D (as in the teacup) stitching in diagram form... So much to learn!

Old Format:

New Format:

What do you think?

Monday Marketing: Blog design and Pattern Reclamation

Today I am thinking a bit about marketing.

I think that my pattern layout design may not be ideal, based on threads I have read on Ravelry as well as my own gut feeling. One thing I do like about my pattern layout choice is my colour theme of purple and green. With that in mind, I thought a redesign of my blog was in order, to bring it more in line with that theme and to freshen it up. With that in mind - any former readers feel free to weigh in on the new design (new readers, I'm also happy to hear from you about my blog design - what works for you, what doesn't?)

I also realised that my Tea Set pattern should be out of its exclusivity period with Yarn Magazine, so I am looking at what I need to do to release that as a self-published pattern.