Pocket Square Love

In preparation for our upcoming Kentucky Derby trip (24 days!!!!) I am working on a project for my friend Dan, one of the people I take the trip with.  You may recall that last month I posted about some darling vintage fabric I found while looking for fabric to make Dan a pocket square.  I like the fabric very much but unfortunately the colors don't match Dan's outfit.  We decided to try recreating the pattern on plain white fabric in the pastel hues we were looking for.  You follow?  For a refresher here is the original fabric I ordered: 

Sooo charming!

                                       
 I bought a solid white bandana and paint pens in pastel blue, yellow, and lavender.  I started by tracing the pattern onto the white fabric.  Fortunately the bandana was pretty thin so I could see through okay.  

Starting off

I didn't exactly trace because the new version only features horses and jockey silks, not the full pattern so I moved those things closer together so it wouldn't look funny.  I also rotated the direction of the horses and silks to make it visually appealing.

Coming along

 Baby got in on the action too: 

The cutest

I continued tracing the silks and horses until I had covered about 1/4 of the bandana.  I wanted to do enough so we could get a feel for how it would look as a pocket square without doing the entire thing if we weren't going to use it.  

Tracing is fun!

 Then it was time to start filling in.

Starting to fill in

This was as far as I got last night.  

1/4ish done

I'm pretty pleased with how it's looking so far.  A few comments: the bandana was 21" square.  A normal pocket square is between 12"-15" square.  Now, I don't want this to look too bulky/poufy but I also don't care to fill in an additional 200"-300" square if I don't have to.  A girl's got to blog, and cook and sleep!  So I am considering trimming it down a bit before I finish.  I could just leave some white but I think that might show and look odd.  I have been alternating the colors of the silks and horses to add visual interest.  We may also add some horse shoes or clovers in between.  I have been using very fine-tipped fabric pens but I may see if I can locate wider ones in the same hues to make the coloring in go a little faster.  What do you think?  Do you have any tips or suggestions?