I don’t know about anyone else, but at a certain point once you’ve done a project or hobby enough time I think your brain gets a little bit ambitious. Maybe it starts when you’re putting an edge on something, or maybe you start daydreaming when you’re knitting, but at a certain point you start experimenting with stitches, yarns and patterns. You go “off the pattern” so to say, and start making your own.
I first tried my hand at this with cross stitch. As a young novice cross stitcher I had done a few patterns and wanted to make something that related to one of the series I was into at the time. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find anything on the internet that matched what I was looking for. There is nothing that get’s your creative juices flowing as much as wanting to make something in a certain craft only to realize that no one else has made a pattern for it yet. Pictured is that first pattern, a very rough set of the character symbols of an old animated show “Sailor Moon”. I’ve dabbled in it here and there as the years went on but I’ve never really done anything large (at least not yet). My most recent fandom related pattern is a set of crests and digi-eggs (pictured in progress in the post “Fandom Fun”) but those tend to be rather small.
With the pattern pictured I just grabbed colored thread that I felt was the right color and went to town, making a rough estimate of the shape and size I would need. (You can probably tell from the wonky shape and look of some of them). As I’ve gotten older and slightly more refined with the method of my madness I’ve started using graph paper to make my plans, the squares on the grid are just what I need to mark out the different stitches.
I’ve currently got two larger original patterns that I’m trying to think of colors for but they are likely going to sit on my shelf for some time, considering how much I still have to do with my middle earth project. I’ve gotten the general shape done for the pieces, but the true test is going to be actually sitting down and making the pattern. There are some things that you just can’t be certain of until you have the physical item in hand. Sometimes it’s as simple as adding or removing a stitch in the pattern to make a certain part a little larger or more pronounced. Sometimes you end up looking at the pattern and realizing what you’ve made doesn’t work at all and you need to rip out large parts and re-work them.
I’m still trying to work out the best way to get color in the more recent patterns I made – uncertain if I should physically color in all the squares the color I’m thinking of or if it would be better to mark out the areas in pencil and then adjust as needed. After all, even if I color in the pattern there’s no guarantee that the colors I use will mach perfectly with the color of the thread, or that I’ll get the color shifts / gradients in place on the first try. There’s a bit of temptation to simply make the pattern one color with abstract designs within the pattern itself, which could look cool, but that option is still up in the air.
Honestly, finding the time to try and do a trial run of my pattern is going to be the biggest test of all. If only there were more hours in a day!
