testing testing 1-2-3

I like to occasionally talk about my design process here on the blog. I've written about print development and prototyping my sewing pattern designs. Today I'd like to talk about doing mini tests, when I try out a portion of a design to quickly see if my technique will work on a small scale before cutting into a larger piece of fabric...and a larger piece of time.

This patchwork test was a prelude to my Polar Babies Quilt and Pillow pattern. I had sketched the living daylights out of a potential layout for this quilt, but at some point I gotta get my feet wet and sew the darn thing. I imagined each of my appliquéd animals to sit in a square that had a sense of "landscape" and I had an idea for a technique involving curves.  I used some pretty little charm squares from my friend Marisa's "Meet The Gang" collection plus a few solids. I made  a stack of 3 squares, cut 2 freehand wavy cuts, then rearranged the tops, middles and bottoms of each square to create 3 different mini blocks. I repeated that twice, resulting in 9 mini blocks. To stand in as my polar characters, I cut out  motifs from one of the prints and ironed them on with fusible webbing.

Sometimes when I am trying to decide between layouts, sashing vs. none, etc, I take photos of it with my phone. That way I can remember what each option looked like and scroll from one to the next. Also, there's something about looking at a photo that flattens everything out and helps me to really see the composition and proportion better. You can see the final quilt here, in my post about it from this past fall.

Here's some pleat practice that I did before making my Pleated Pillow Trio pattern. I like to explore as many options as possible. Machine stitching, hand stitching, different widths, etc.

For awhile I was in a scallop making phase. I believe scallops are the new ruffle! I still haven't quite landed on "the one". I struggle to make my patterns struggle-free for the end user. If it's too fussy or not easily achievable I keep trying or move on. I save all of my mini proto test swatchie things, even if I don't end up using them or am not happy with how they look. There is always something to learn from them for the next idea!

How do you test out an idea or technique?