I started by sketching out my elements. I drew one big hero element, two medium-sized elements, and a bunch of little detail elements that I can use to fill in the gaps of my pattern. I drew my sketch on my iPad in Procreate:

Next up, I filled in my sketch with color to help me determine what colors to use when I painted the real thing in watercolor:

Once I was happy with my sketch and minimal color palette, I painted it out on paper with watercolor. (My favorite medium!) 

I scanned in my artwork and gave it a digital facelift in Photoshop: I removed the paper texture background, brightened the colors, and deepened the contrast a bit:

Next up, my seamless pattern!

And because I have a habit of creating tons of color palette alts:

Last but not least, I couldn't resist popping these into a digital mockup to see how they'd look on fabric:

Want to learn how to do the same thing? Check out my class, Watercolor a Seamless Pattern: Surface Design in Adobe Photoshop for Print-On-Demand.