Useful Drawings

I keep several different journals or notebooks going at once.  This particular journal is for my business, PieceWork Wallets& Things.  My partner and I keep track of orders, consignments, supplies, and designs as well as special orders.  In order to design something new, we build on things we've  already  figured out how to make.  Then I draw out the steps of the new design, and we write notes for ourselves so that we can remember how to, for example, make a pocket that will fit on a spanner.  I did my drawings today in the business book because they were drawings that we will need to use in making a backpack the next time someone orders one.   This two page spread shows the shapes and dimensions, roughly, of the pieces we need to cut out (left page) as well as the preliminary steps of piecing and hemming (right page).

 This second spread is more detailed.  It's numbered in steps, but there is some going back and forth as we realized we would need to do one step before another.  Some of the drawings are cross sections that show how various layers of material interface.

And finally two drawings of the finished backpack, one from the side and one 3/4 view.  These help us remember what the finished piece looks like.  For me, drawings are much more useful than photographs in giving directions.  Drawing in black pen lets me isolate the important elements and reduces clutter, such as background and color and designs on material.  Pen drawing heightens the contrast so that the lines stand out crisply from the page and are easy to see clearly.  I would rather have line drawings than shaded drawings except where some shading is necessary to give information.  In these drawings the small amount of shading helps define the inside, outside, and underside of the bag.  I numbered these drawings more or less, keeping them in the sequence of the 10,000.  I spent so much time on them I decided they needed to count!