Trevelyon's Pocket: Design and Colour

I've been working hard on a new design for a miniature pocket, based on a design from Thomas Trevelyon. It's unbelievable how much time it takes to draw, trace, edit, fix, erase, edit, redraw, copy, white out, redraw from an original to create a pattern that's usable for us to stitch from. This is especially true when working in miniature, since a pattern that's too crowded simply won't work!Here is what the original pattern from Trevelyon looks like.And here is how it looks now that I've finished reworking it for embroidering in a much smaller area.Here are all the Au ver a Soie D'Alger threads on the ivory silk fabric, including the gold passing thread I'll be using. Just seeing them altogether makes me excited to get started!I've decided on which colours I want to use but not where each colour will be used within the design. For that I will pull out my coloured pencils. I test each coloured pencil to see if the colour matches when the pencil is applied to the paper. Once I've found the best match, I make a note of which number pencil correlates to which number thread.Then I lay them out as you see above, ready to experiment.  I always have a "whee of a time" colouring in the design! I usually do three of four different coloured designs before I find one I love and, even then, I often make adjustments as I stitch.What do you think of the colours? Do you do the same kind of thing when designing a piece? Please leave a comment and share your process with us!