pattern pals - hot and cold

Well, I did it! After much encouragement from Emma - who is seriously drawin' up a storm over in the Midwest - I created my very first pattern! Actually, my first pattern experience was a loooong time ago, when I was still a student at MCAD, but as with most things that I don't use on a regular basis (except, perhaps, my near encyclopedic knowledge of certain television shows, ahem) the memory of how to make patterns escaped my brain.
We started with the prompt "hot and cold", since, as you may know, Minnesota has been unbearably col, and Los Angeles has been reliably beautiful (um, until today/this weekend. But at least it's rainy and 60). After a little sketching and a lot of indecision, I inked up some flowers and snowflakes to put together a loose interpretation of the theme. I used this tutorial, which is very simple. But. It took me much longer than it should have, and it still has that awful easy-to-see-where-the-pattern-square-is effect that I'd prefer to avoid. You have to start somewhere, I suppose, so expect more of these coming your way, internet.