A Day in the Designing Life

I love Robyn's "Day in the Life" idea, so here's mine. Good thing I committed to this particular day because if I'd waited for a "typical" day I would never have blogged one. There is no typical day and that's exactly what I like about designing! So here's how yesterday went:

7:10 a.m. - Today I woke up earlier than the usual 7:40-8:00 range. That meant that I could help Mr. Designingvashti get our 3rd-grader to the bus stop in time. He's excited about Field Day today. My beverage of choice is Yogi Green Tea Goji (I'm exploring the Japanese matcha tea scene). I'll be taking a brisk 45-min. walk so I nibble on mulberries from our tree, which I much prefer over raspberries or blackberries, and inhale deeply from our neighbor's true jasmine bushes OMG. Most other mornings I wake up with a design brainstorm or project that gets me out of bed so then I make a pot of my favorite jasmine green tea with some raw honey, and try to get a walk in later in the day. The jasmine and the frangipani smell different at different times of day :-)

9:30 - OK, back from a brisk preoccupied walk because I realize I'm in an end-of-week pileup. Listing them here might help:

1. Prepare for a crochet jewelry class I'm teaching at my LYS this weekend–I need new handouts and I can never have enough samples. Last night my LYSO said that more people signed up at the last minute, which is exciting!!

2. Write up two patterns for designs that will be in a book–can't talk about them yet.

3. Continue my marathon swatching for designs I have in mind to wear to TNNA in 3 weeks. This is the first time in 3 years that I have the chance to do this; usually I'm too busy working up designs for editors to make something special and new for myself. The last time I did this the Mermaid Shrug, my favorite, happened. Of course I have 5 projects in mind and that's just crazy.

4. Make decisions clustered around the issue of branding, which affects how I'll upload new patterns to Ravelry, how my site map would be laid out, etc.

5. Complete the teacher's gift I designed which will also become a pdf pattern that I'll offer for sale in Ravelry. (I always procrastinate when I have to put a face on something. The face is everything, you know?)

10:30 - Reality check during my mid-morning u-betcha espresso ritual: the class samples and supplies are rounded up. Who knows how long the handouts will take (always longer than I expect). I will carve items 3 & 4 into smaller steps; most of #4 can be tabled for a few days. I don't usually have a class weighing on my mind while having patterns to write. Item 2 must be completed today before Mini-D.vashti comes home from school--I need 100% concentration to write patterns. Item 5 except photography can be done tonight if I don't have a glass of shiraz with dinner :-). It's great that the phone has not been ringing.

3:30 p.m.- Emailed the first pattern complete with three variations just before the school bus comes. It won't be a problem to do the 2nd pattern first thing tomorrow, there are no variations and it's already mostly written. Rounded up all of my jewelry patterns which just makes we want to create more jewelry!

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The rest of the day is a blur so this is the gist: spent rest of afternoon making a poster of ways Mini-D.vashti can earn more allowance $. It's a new system I've been working out that involves crocheted allowance tokens {{giggle}}

Spent the whole rest of the evening crocheting new jewelry for the class (sigh. I couldn't help it).

Mulberry season wanes as LYCHEES prepare to take their place. As of today they're starting to turn red. Yay!