Bears ‘N Buddies by Pickle Toes Patterns

When I read about this challenge, I knew I had to be a part of it. I am currently a children’s clothing designer under the business name Snails N Tails Boutique, but I’ve longed to design my own patterns for quite some time. I’ve actually been designing my own patterns for years, but only for use in my clothing business. A few months ago, I mentioned to a friend that I wished I could make patterns to sell. She informed me that I had been creating my own patterns for years and there was no reason why I couldn’t sell them. That sparked a great interest in learning exactly how the process worked. The challenge for me was to actually learn how to put it into pdf format. Well, that was much easier said than done.

The Bears ‘N Buddies pattern was not my first choice, but with all I needed to learn, I knew that I needed to start small. I thought about what I could create that wouldn’t take me as much time to work on for my first pattern, since I still had many custom clothing orders that I needed to finish. Finally, I remembered a pattern that I made over 4 years ago for my son’s Build-A-Bear to match a set I made him. It was the first pattern I created completely on my own, so it was fitting that it would be the first pattern I released. I now had the pattern and I could get to work digitizing it! Well, it took me several hours to get 1 page done because I had no clue how to use the programs. I did end up getting someone to digitize it for me, but I am learning how to use the program little by little. That was the biggest challenge for me and I really wanted to do it myself, but I just didn’t have time to learn it all before the deadline.

Once my pattern was digitized it was time to get the instructions done. That was a challenge all on it’s own. Capturing each step took time, but I learned a lot along the way. I had great testers that were completely honest and very helpful with advice on things I might need to change or correct. In the end, I think it turned out really well.

There is still a lot for me to learn, but I think my first pattern was a success as far as the challenge goes. It was a challenge for me to learn the program to digitize it so that it would look professional, and though I still have a lot to learn, I am now able to do something with the program. Writing instructions for someone else to know what to do with the pattern was a challenge and I overcame that. Lastly, I had no idea how to put the pattern and the instructions into one file, but I figured that one out, too. It was a learning process each step of the way, and I enjoyed every minute of it…..almost.