Annortha
This was when I was in the process of making my shawl/poncho thingy for Fi's costume from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
I had no pattern to work with. It mostly required making visual sketches on paper and sort of playing the guessing game. In the end, I think I did a pretty good job for trying to make something without a pattern for the first time.
To make the "turtle neck" part of the shawl, I wrapped plastic around my neck, cut it off, cut it into smaller pieces, traces the pieces onto tissue paper, cut out the tissue paper, traced it onto the fabric, cut the fabric out and sewed the pieces together.