Digitizing the Jelly Snap Pouch Pattern 💿

Hello and happy August. It is rainy here due to echoes of hurricanes, and I am loving it. It feels like fall. In a good way.

This past weekend, I did some random project zoning out that was very enjoyable. Well, headline of this past weekend was I saw CATS: Jellicle Ball and it changed my life. However - I’ve had a stack of jelly vinyl sheets, little tiny labels, and plastic snaps all ready and waiting for about three months, and I finally felt ready to turn them into Jelly Snap Pouches.

Apparently, I wasn’t exactly ready enough, because I took a two-day detour to update my cutting template, which I then decided to turn into a little pattern. Three seasons of Rick and Morty later (don’t judge me. Love me), it was born.

I’ve always considered making the pattern in the back of my mind, but I spent a couple of years talking myself out of it. It is a very, very basic pattern that you can definitely figure out just from looking at it. But then I thought about all of the patterns I’ve loved because the designer has gotten some nice proportions, or because of little design elements I hadn’t thought to include. I also sometimes feel like I’m a part of a community when I’ve bought independent patterns from companies just starting out. It makes me love the internet! Internet friends make the eWorld go round.

So, I decided to make it. And I decided it would be $5. If $20 is the adult dollar bill, then $5 is adult penny candy?

I wanted to share my process 1. so I don’t forget for myself, 2. so that if you have a pattern in the back of your mind, maybe one or some of these steps will encourage you to try it out.

Here’s what I did.

I started with the paper piece I had originally used for my jelly pouches. Looking at it now, I’m like What the heck were you thinking using this thing - it’s so uneven! I now realize why I spent a fairly large last step of fixing up the look of the flap lol.

*the sad, crooked little paper pattern from whence it all began*

I took a photo of the paper piece against my cutting board to help get measurements of the piece. In retrospect, I have no idea why I didn’t just scan it with my printer - the photo came out angled against my best intentions and was a little annoying to deal with. But, if you don’t have a printer/scanner, and if your pattern is pretty simple, this is a useful option, I guess.

I then used the Sketchbook app on my iPad to trace around the image, drawing both an outline of the shape and an outline of a 1-inch square for size reference. Sketchbook has both a ruler and the ability to draw symmetrically, which was very satisfying to me and immediately erased the emotional toll of suffering many months using my crooked, terrible original template. I was able to clean up the general shape and make sure the corners were right angles, which took me a little above and around the photograph (which was crooked).

I originally tried using Procreate on my iPad (the name will never not be the weirdest to me), but realized that it’s really more for organic shapes and vibezz - there are ways to draw very straight lines, but it was difficult for me to make complete shapes with guaranteed right angles. And when it comes to right angles, I must have guarantees.

*one of the great pixelation tragedies of my life*

I then transferred the basic outline of my pattern onto Inkscape on my computer. I did this because I wanted to use vectors for my pattern. I’ve been pixel-burned before - namely when I drew my “Careful! I’m sharp!” envelope design for my cross-stitch kits. Fuzzy images are for cute cat pix only. Vectors (I learned recently) never get fuzzy or grainy. They just keep infinitely expanding or whatever whenever you zoom in, so the line is always smooth. TBH Inkscape is quite technical and somewhat freaks me out, but it’s not too bad and gets easier the more you use it - and there are some useful tutorials out there.

I feel like my list of steps isn’t as helpful as it can be because I’m not really showing you how to do stuff specifically, but I’m perhaps giving you some app names that you might like?

Anywho, I used Inkscape to get really specific with my lines, making sure they were VERY perpendicular to each other, the same length, the same thickness, etc. I also realized that Inkscape has a text feature that has some very great fonts, so I decided to just finalize the whole pattern there. I was considering transferring the image to Canva and then using that to make the instructions, etc, but I think that would have defeated the purpose of using the vector software.

So, then I spent a long and very enjoyable while pushing the pieces around and making it all fit on one page. I set the canvas to 8.5 x 11 and enabled the grid view to make sure my 1” testing square was properly formatted to the sheet. This helped me make sure my pattern was the right size for printing. I downloaded the PDF, made sure my printer settings were set specifically to my printer (I’ve found that when it’s set to “Any Printer,” it cuts the bottom off. I don’t know), and gave it a go. It didn’t work for a while and then it did - I am so unhelpful in not remembering what happened, but I swear that about ⅓ of the things I wing just work out because I do something without really knowing it and then I back away slowly before I mess it up. Ex: the replacement piece for the top rack of the dishwasher - didn’t work, didn’t work, I moved it quickly in a weird way that I don’t remember, and now it works.

Printing out the pattern and cutting the pieces out was an important step in this process. In doing so, I realized that the front piece of the pattern was a little shorter than I wanted. It was fun to be able to go back into the pattern and make the changes right there.

My final step was to create a little cover page using Canva. It was very fun when I started doing the background - it reminds me of rainbow ink pads I had as a young cranky moon. The pictures on this cover are two thumbs down, but I’ve got plans for a big photoshoot once I’ve made enough items to photograph.

So, it’s all done and on Etsy. Nothing revolutionary but very fun to make, so I’m glad I did it.

Yours in jelliness,

Jess

Digitizing the Jelly Snap Pouch Pattern 💿

Shrinkin’ & Dinkin’