The Making of A Felt Seahorse PDF Pattern Part 2

I hope you found something interesting in Part 1 of this series and will continue to do so in Part 2. Let's see, we left off at the seahorse pattern cut out of felt and waiting for details.

  

Making Decisions About The Seahorse Eyes.

 

My re-design of the seahorse had a very seahorse type of eye, bulgy and kind of weird looking. I really liked the realistic nature of it, well as realistic as a bright pink seahorse will ever be, lol. But then I decided that look didn't fit my style, so I went back to the large dark eye but made it round instead of oval-ish from the original pattern...see below.

Deciding On The Seahorse Details.

 

I liked the simple stitch detail of the original design above, but needed to clean it up and make it easy to do. The original was sort of a running stitch that I just did, I think. All of these sold so I don't have one to hold and look closely at, and this was a few years ago. My stitching technique is also so much better now, that I cringe a little looking at that photo.

I decided the easiest and nicest looking stitch for this detail would be the back stitch. I will have a stitch guide template for this that can be traced and used to help achieve nice even stitches.

I'm actually free handing my stitches here and am really liking the look of this detail.

After I added the detail to both sides, I simplified the detail by making one main line of stitching all the way down with shorter parallel lines crossing at even intervals. I really like the lighter colored tummy area in felt. I am going to leave the tummy area free of stitching, just don't think it needs any.

Then I added the white highlight to the eyes. This makes them "come alive".

Sewing all the way around and stuffing completes this re-design and making of the felt  seahorse prototype.

I have some small tweaks to make on this pattern and have at this point decided to make this pattern the original "plushie" size, because this size would be difficult for beginners and children to sew. In another post I'll show the size difference between the two.

Well I hope you found this short series about making a felt seahorse pattern interesting in any way and don't forget to check out the first post in this series.

I have another post about the making of a felt penguin pattern, that is more detailed on the terms and the physical making of a PDF pattern, that you might like too, which can be found here. 

If you want to know more about Sassy Packrat Studios, learn felt sewing tips, get special FREE access to my newest patterns, then become a subscriber member!  click here to join!

Worktable Wednesday: Making an Accessory Pattern Set

If you've read the post about making a PDF pattern HERE, then you already know I'm in the process of making a Penguin plush pattern. Actually that pattern is complete and just waiting while I finish the add on pattern set I decided to do.

I made prototypes of everything and then set them aside for a few days so I could let the excited feeling fade and then I could look at them again with fresh, rational eyes. (I tend to get super, over excited about things and miss mistakes and details so waiting a few days helps me see those things that I missed the first time around get ideas for changes)

 I had an idea for glasses, yup glasses on a Penguin! See excitement, right? And I was sure I loved the design, but after a few days I realized:

• I didn't like the shape of the glasses, too superhero-ish.
  
• I wasn't thrilled with the design of the satchel, yeah there's a satchel too, squee!
• The small fish inside the satchel was too long and not detailed enough for my liking.
  (yes the Penguin is carrying a satchel with a fish!), See I'm getting excited all over
  again!
• Going back and forth on whether I'm completely satisfied with the hat yet.
  
  Pattern making is a longer process than you might think.
  My plan for the day was to figure out changes to the design and make new prototypes.
  But my DNA results from Ancestry.com came in and I've spent literally all day going over it and adding people to my family tree. Can you tell I'm easily distracted?
  So all my plans for today will be shifted until tomorrow. 
  
  If you found this post about pattern making interesting, check out this more in depth post on how I make patterns!
  
  
  

Worktable Wednesday: The Step By Step Guide To How I Design A Felt Craft Pattern

I've been working on a new pattern for weeks now and I'm almost done.

I thought my lovely readers might like to see the process of making a craft felt pattern. So here we go with a quick overview. I have a gift for you for reading this in the very last paragraph.

How I design a felt Craft Pattern.

DESIGNING A PROTOTYPE

This process usually starts with a simple pencil sketch of an idea I had. But in this case I decided to re-design an old pattern of mine, The Fat Penguin.

Cute right? But it was time for an update. I took this original design that I already had a template for and tweaked it a bit on the computer.

Not much is different except the face, which I love, and an addition of feet. So using this graphic I made more tweaks until I came up with something I really liked. 

When I make my soft sculpture pieces I tend to hand draw patterns and leave them that way. I never digitize them. 

Next I digitize my pattern pieces.

 

WHAT IS DIGITIZE?

Digitize is basically a sewing term that means to make a pattern computer friendly so that it can be downloaded and printed. This is how clothing patterns, embroidery patterns and any patterns for sale are made. It gives a professional look to your patterns and allows you to add informative instructions and details to help the sewer complete the project successfully.

I come from a graphic design background, not a sewing one, so I usually refer to this process as making a template. Same process. Here's an example of my pattern.

Wow, where was I? Oh yeah, then I made a pattern on the computer using a graphic software. All my templates have pattern pieces and positioning guides that show where to place pieces and other helpful information.

These templates are only a starting point for me because when I make the prototype I usually will made changes to the design and will later go back and make those same changes to the template.
  

MAKING A PROTOTYPE. 

 A prototype is something you make to see if the pattern works properly. It's an important step when designing a pattern and you make it out of the material you intend it to be made in, ie. fabric, felt etc.

The Happy Earth Guy pattern, from this post,I made was absolutely perfect at the beginning pattern stage, so I took photos while making the prototype for the step by step tutorial. This rarely ever happens, but did that time.

I print and cut out my beginning pattern pieces and start making the penguin.

 

As I sew the prototype, I write notes about each step of the process so I know what works and what I changed to work better.

I'll then use those notes to make changes to the pattern template graphics. I also will use those notes when planning and taking step by step photos and writing the pattern instructions later.

Another thing I do at this point is to think about if I never made something like this before, what questions would I have? What information would I need to complete this project successfully? Then I add answers to that to my notes.

Prototype done! The body of this pattern remained the same from my template but I had to make the feet design 4 different times and figure out the best way to attach them that would make sense to other people.

Once I have all my photos shot, I spend time editing them.   

WHAT IS PHOTO EDITING?

Photo editing is a process where you open your photos in an imaging program, like Photoshop and make changes to the photos. The kinds of changes I make are color brightness, cropping the images to a certain preset size I use for my patterns so all the photos are uniform in size.  

Next up is page layout.

WHAT IS PAGE LAYOUT?

Page layout is how the pattern PDF pages look. It's also where the photos are placed, the size of the text, fonts and the flow and order of the pages. Some programs that can be used are Illustrator, InDesign and even Word.

All of these things have to be worked out and presented in a cohesive and pleasing manner.

Above is an example of one of my pages. I lay out my photos corresponding to my notes and then go back and start writing the instructions. Sometimes I'll remove a photo that doesn't help the reader and everything behind that page has to be re-organized.

After that's all done, spelling, punctuation, grammar checked and photos double checked for proper positioning, I have someone else read through the pattern looking for good flow and mistake.

Sometime I have to re-shoot a photo at a different angle and insert. I kind of hate that, but it happens. Mistakes if found are fixed.

Then finally I move on to the beauty shot.

WHAT'S A BEAUTY SHOT?

A beauty shot is the great looking photo for the front of the PDF. I also use my beauty shots for marketing my patterns and for photos on my website.

This was one I was considering showing the 2 versions of penguins you can make from this pattern, I think it's too plain though. So I had another idea which I still need to shoot that will be much better.

 Here's a shot I did for my Happy Earth Guy Pattern.

 And a shot I did for my Bunny In The Grass Ornament.

Lastly it's time to make the PDF.

WHAT'S A PDF?

 PDF is short for Portable Document File. It allows you to take multiple pages and combine them together into a single document that can be sent by email or downloaded. It's seriously the best thing ever. PDF's can be opened by a free program called Adobe Reader.

If you enjoyed this post about pattern making I have another short post here you might enjoy too! 

Here's a link to an old post series I wrote about creating plush patterns you might enjoy too!

So if you read all the way through to the end, yay and I have a gift for you! 

Sign up for my newsletter now and you'll get FREE access to this pattern when it comes out AND be entered into a GIVEAWAY of one of the prototypes! I know, so cool right? 

Click here to sign up!

You can sign up with the pop-up, the clickable tab at the top right of the blog and on the side bar. Sign up now and don't miss out!

Worktable Wednesday:Designing "The Look" Of My PDF's

I made an announcement last week that I'm going to be designing and selling PDF patterns. A lot of work goes into doing that and the Free patterns that I offer to you my blog readers and my email subscribers, so I thought I'd document the process. It's given me a whole new respect for designers who do this.

So to begin with I needed to design "the look" of my patterns. Yes that's a thing and I wanted a clean look that would work with all my patterns and be identifiable as a Sassy Packrat Studios Pattern.

I first picked the type font I'd use for my headers, which are the name of the pattern, and all titles, like Instructions, supplies etc. I chose the font I use in my logo, which I really love and made it a blue color that also come from my logo.

  All the secondary text will be in a medium gray color and the important copyright text will be in black. The red box above is where the beauty shot of the finished plush piece will go. I'm considering adding a few lines of a story about the plush character on this page. I also will add some snowflake graphics for this particular PDF.

  This second page is an introduction about making this piece and supplies/tools. I'm probably going to make this 2 pages with the supplies and tools on it's own page. There will be photos of the supplies and tools needed plus a written out list.

 The sewing instruction pages will have photos, graphics and written text explaining each step. All pages except the cover page will be numbered.

 This is an original design I used to make that was pretty popular, so I've chosen it for my first selling pattern. I'm re-designing it and it will look somewhat different than this, but it's a cute and easy to make pattern that doesn't require a lot of skill and will turn out well.

My goal is to have this pattern ready my the end of April. I'd love to have some pattern testers, is anyone interested? 

Here are the details: You get the pattern FREE to try, be willing to send me 3 photos of your finished piece and feedback on the pattern and process. After I've made tweaks I'll send you the final pattern for FREE as compensation for testing the pattern. I'll also keep you on my list for future testing. Sound good? Then email me with your interest. I'm Jennifer, sassypackrat(at)hotmail(dot)com. Thanks!