My First Fabric Collection: Developing a Workflow & Accountability
This is the third post in the series My First Fabric Collection. Get started with post number one: Why Immersion in 2024?
I knew from the beginning that Immersion was going to be labor intensive. The website itself says to plan for 1-3 hours a day or 1-2 days per week if you wanted to attend the course “live” and finish on time in May. I knew that this was the only model that was going to work for me. From January through May, my day job at the museum is a slow build up towards the summer. It is the busiest part of the school year when it comes to teaching in local schools; my annual field trip event occurs at the beginning of May; and then in the background of those two major projects, we are prepping for the eight weeks of summer camp that would kick off at the start of June. If I didn’t get the course done on time by the end of May, I knew that I would lose my momentum and be in danger of not finishing.
Setting A Schedule
I had enough foresight to know that I wanted to take time off work to give myself a little breathing room. I ended up taking one day off a week, usually a Friday, for ten straight weeks. I’m not sure that I would have been successful without that extra day. One thing that Bonnie repeats over and over again in her course, her live calls, and on her podcast, is the power of steady incremental progress. Included in the Immersion Box Experience, which was a beautifully curated box of our workbook as well as items to help us along the way, was a One Thing A Day Tracker with enough spots to cover two full years of progress. One of the first things I did was set up my art space.
I currently live in a one bedroom apartment, so when I say my art space, I mean my two by four foot art table in my living room. I took that tracker and posted it above my desk so that it was always in view. My minimum goal every day was to do fifteen minutes of art-work. It could be as simple as watching part of a lesson or live call, but I had to do at least fifteen minutes every day. During the week when I was also working, those fifteen minutes could be early in the morning. Sometimes it was the last thing I did before getting into bed. During the week, I just needed to hit my fifteen minutes, anything else was gravy. My day off and my weekends were my time to get serious work done and I usually worked anywhere from four to six hours on days I didn’t have to do my day job. On average, I would say I spent anywhere from 10-20 hours working on some part of Immersion each week.
My personal art practice took a bit of a back seat during this time, but I compensated by starting to work in my sketchbooks, where I felt like there was less pressure to create something “good.” Little by little my tracker filled out over the course of March, April, and May. Since it was always up in the living room, it was a constant reminder of whether I still needed to squeeze in my fifteen minutes. I also made sure that my husband knew what my daily goal was and he was really good (sometimes too good ☺️) at reminding me to get in my fifteen minutes. My tracker is still posted on my wall and while I gave myself more breaks during summer camp and vacation season, it has kept me consistent and motivated. Who knew that such a simple tool could have such a big impact.
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Embrace Being a Beginner
Learning Adobe Illustrator was a beast of a task. While I was excited and not intimidated by my ability to learn, it certainly took a lot of constant practice. Those were the hardest modules to get through. After watching a video, it usually took me about three times as long to practice a skill. And sometimes I still wouldn't feel like I had the technique fully figured out. But I just had to get used to being a beginner. I tried to give myself a little grace along the way. Sometimes this meant sticking with something when it was frustrating the crap out of me. Other times, I just needed to move on to the next lesson.
One of the benefits of this particular course is that you learn a lot of different ways to do the same thing. While I certainly would say that I became competent in Illustrator by the end of the course, I still would not consider myself an expert. With lifetime access though, I will be able to review the course whenever I need it. Once I start working on my second collection, I imagine I will work through the course a second time to further develop my skills. Having my initial collection theme already in mind was a big help as I learned techniques in Illustrator during the early modules. I could use lessons to develop a specific idea I had while also practicing a specific tool. For example, I practiced drawing the outline of a vehicle in various ways. While I started with the pencil tool, I discovered that the blob brush tool was a better tool for the job (IYKYK).
Study Group
Perhaps the biggest impact on my ability to keep plugging away day after day was my study group. I decided to pay a little bit of extra cash to be put into an accountability group that would meet weekly for the duration of the course. The introvert in me was cringing hard when I clicked the add to cart button for the study group, but I am really glad that I did. I was paired with six other women from different parts of Colorado who were in the same stage of learning as I was. While it was initially a little awkward to show up and share our wins, what we were working on, and our goals for the next week, after a couple weeks I really started to look forward to our meetings. It was nice to talk to a group of people that were going through the same experience as me and who were having the same struggles and breakthroughs. Learning something new is hard, but each week I had six cheerleaders by my side. Thank you Laura, Lee Ann, Vinda, Tammy, Amanda, and Lisa. I can now count these women among my friends and we are still meeting weekly even months after Immersion has passed. If anything, our post-Immersion meetings are even more meaningful as we are getting to know each other on a personal level. I cannot wait to see what we accomplish as individuals and together over the next six months and into next year.
Next on the blog: Creating Artwork and Developing Motifs
Introducing: TREAD
Hey you! Can’t wait to get to the end of this six part series? My first fabric collection: Tread is available now on Spoonflower. One FREE way that you can support me is by favoriting those patterns that you like.
TREAD is a collection that celebrates the roads we travel and the marks we leave behind. This collection is inspired by historic automobiles, vintage fashion, and art deco designs.