Lately, I’ve been working on a lot of projects where people have suggested that I send in some sketches.  At first, this sounded fairly simple.  I love drawing.  In fact, all of my fabric and stationery designs start off with pencil and paper.  When I brainstorm something new to make, I almost always include a sketch in my notebook. So I dug out my notes to see what I had and realized that there was a little problem.

The word “sketch” would be a generous term for some of these drawings.  It’s more like an elaborate shorthand that only means something to me.  When I look at these drawings, I see construction details, material choices, colors, the finished project.  I think most people would see blobs and little happy faces.  So I have quite a bit of work to do before I’ll be sending sketches anywhere.  I see some time with my dear friend, Adobe Illustrator, in my near future.

This all reminded me of a sketch my dad made for me.  I once asked him if he would help me measure the living room, and 15 minutes later he handed me this:

Crazy, huh?  I guess that’s how engineers sketch.  Maybe I should see if he’s available…