As far as I know – there are several ways to do just about anything: You can just make the thing from your imagination, you can look at a thing and then create a similar thing, you can read about a thing and then materialize the thing, you can get instruction in making the thing (watch someone else make it or read instructions) and then have at it, or you can be hands-on walked through the making of the thing, or you can just pay someone else to make the thing. I have made things using all of those methods at one time or another. I really like making things and it is easiest for me to make things by looking at the thing and then making the thing. I am fortunate that I can do it that way – most people have difficultly doing it that way.

Because other people have difficultly doing the looking-then-making of things, I think they expect that everyone uses a pattern, or has several trial runs, or cheats the system in some way. Who creates patterns for other people to use? I kind of assume that it would be done by people who can translate or deconstruct a thing – the people who can make a thing by tearing a thing apart and making a pattern (or people who want to make several things the same and pattern it out as they go.) I do not use patterns – I kind of just eye-ball everything.

So I’m still mulling over my A&S results and why I had such a disparaging difference in scores. The one that did the best was the one that I broke down into all of it’s various parts and documented each step in the process. I don’t think it was because it was the most work – but it was the one I was most transparent about when it came to the work I did. It did include a good variety of different arts but nothing that I documented too in-depth. The Italian headdress was a lot of trial and error in my head so it took more work but I wonder if it would have gone smoother if I had just created several different headdresses and then created one final project. I want to redo it now that I know what does work. And then there is this picture I think I kind of want to make this headdress and yet I don’t think I will ever make or wear the dress that matches it.