Day 5 of work on a bigger pattern

I'm still working away at the same paisley border pattern. 

It's slower going than I would have guessed and there are sessions where filling in the dark areas is tedious.  (For the next pattern I do, I'm investing in some markers to make laying in blocks of color quicker.)  That said, I think doing this in pencil has been necessary for me in this instance, since I've changed my mind many times as the pattern has evolved and once the lines are filled in with marker, they're fixed.  As you can see, I had to add an extra piece of paper at the bottom of the sheet I was working on, as the page I had wasn't quite long enough.  (I realized it at the end of Day 1 but didn't want to start over and lose what I'd already sketched.) 

This afternoon I was trying to figure out the outline of the larger paisley on the right.  It's challenging figuring out which elements to include and which to leave out: the pattern is complex and I want it to feel intricate but I'm just working with continuous cut-outs, which is to say that most elements of the pattern need to be joined without losing their individual feel.  I also need to make sure that all the white areas in the design connect because they'll be the solid material (the dark areas will be the voids).  I know it will take some tweaking at the end to get the positive and negative space right but hopefully I can pull it off so it's functional.