{"id":3503,"date":"2010-09-23T11:22:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T15:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=3503"},"modified":"2010-09-23T11:22:25","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T15:22:25","slug":"disastrous-prototypes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/disastrous-prototypes\/","title":{"rendered":"disastrous prototypes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought I’d share a little more insight into my design process today – just so you know that things don’t always turn out perfectly the first time, even when you’ve been designing for years, and why I think that’s not a bad thing.<\/p>\n

I challenge myself to come up with new techniques to keep things fresh and interesting, but the more original I get, the more chance that an idea that seems perfect in my head will look completely different when I actually crochet it. So let’s have a chuckle at some of my ridiculous prototypes that (for obvious reasons) didn’t make it into a finished pattern…<\/p>\n

When I was working through my Cactus Collection patterns<\/a>, one of my design decisions was to make each cactus different by more than just size. I always like to do lots of research before I get started on a design so I know exactly what I’m looking to create before I ever make a stitch. I used different stitches, techniques and embellishments so that none of the cacti are the same as any other and to make them look like actual cactus species.<\/p>\n

\"crocheted<\/a><\/p>\n

This worked out fine until I came to the top of the moon cactus (the red piece in my collection). It should have ridges around the sides, but I didn’t want to make it using the same technique I used for the ferocactus (the one with the orange buds at the top). So, time to think of something new…<\/p>\n

I liked my first attempt, but felt the ridges were too subtle:<\/p>\n

\"cactus<\/p>\n

The second attempt looked more like a mistake than a cactus (is it a peppermint candy?!):<\/p>\n

\"cactus<\/p>\n

I thought I had a genius idea with the third attempt, but it ended up looking even more subtle than the first attempt:<\/p>\n

\"cactus<\/p>\n

I tried something totally different with the fourth attempt: interesting, but the proportions are wrong and it’s far too big:<\/p>\n

\"cactus<\/p>\n

A similar technique on a smaller scale for the fifth attempt still didn’t give me the effect I wanted, so I abandoned the attempt halfway through:<\/p>\n

\"cactus<\/p>\n

And finally, I found something I was happy with. It’s similar in look (but not construction) to my first attempt, but the ridges are just that little bit more obvious:<\/p>\n

\"finished<\/p>\n

I hope that my patterns look clean and simple, but, as you can see, a simple pattern doesn’t necessarily imply a simple design process. Taking it from ‘pretty good’ to ‘just right’ sometimes takes a lot of extra effort – but I think that’s effort worth expending. <\/p>\n

And as an added bonus, I always learn something from the failed attempts that I may be able to use for another design in the future! Nothing is ever a completely wasted effort, so don’t be discouraged if your creative efforts don’t always quite turn out the way you imagined they would. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

PS – If you’d like to try crocheting some cacti for yourself, you can find the Cactus Collection patterns<\/a> in my shop!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I’d share a little more insight into my design process today – just so you know that things don’t always turn out perfectly the first time, even when you’ve been designing for years, and why I think that’s not a bad thing. I challenge myself to come up with new techniques to keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}