Designing patterns

I have really been wanting to create more patterns for some of the things I create. I was very happy with the one I created for my patternless handbag. Those instructions have certainly ended up being referenced on a lot of other websites. Eventually, I want to do the instructions for my stuffed pumpkins and for my rag angels. And, with the video camera I got for Christmas (thank you Mother & Daddy), I can actually do videos of how I make stuff.


I got to practice my newly found video making skills a couple of weeks ago when I went to an elementary school up in Costa Mesa to film (sorry, video) the children's book author & illustrator Scott E. Sutton during one of his presentations to the kids. What fun! I had a hard time keeping the camera on him, I was laughing so hard. For a first attempt, the video turned out pretty good. Now it just needs to be edited down a bit.

That exercise has made me look more closely at how other instructional videos are shot. The problem I have when I was shooting my own stuff is trying to do it all myself. So, when I want a closeup of something, I have to stop, re-adjust the camera, and the start again.

The other more important issue is how much time it takes. It is easy to just sit down and make something. It is much more difficult to have to stop and think about how to make it, and to put it into words and pictures for someone else to understand. I found that it takes about 1 hour of working time to produce about 1 minute of instructions. So a project that takes an hour for me to make, takes about 60 hours of work to create the pattern and instructions.

Now that I look at it this way I understand why I have been so reluctant to start another pattern. And, I really understand why pattern designers get so upset when someone copies their design. I wonder how many times my patternless handbag has been copied.