Years ago when I was walking down a street I found a scarf on the ground. It was beautiful silk with a lovely pattern, in perfect condition. I wasn’t the scarf wearing type (still more a bandana girl), but it was too pretty not to keep and there wasn’t exactly a lost and found I could take it to.

At the beginning of August illustrator Melanie Johnnson launched her pattern challenge on Instagram. Participants were provided 15 prompts to complete over the course of the month — 2 a day. While I love to draw and make digital creations, I’m not a pattern maker. It is, however, a technique I’ve been wanting to explore for a while. The reluctance was two-fold: what and how.