Why I can't add pattern to swatches in illustrator cs5

1. Draw a shape of which you want to create a pattern of. For example, we created this leaf.
2. Select the shape and drag it onto the Brushes Panel. If you do not have your Brushes Panel open, go to Window > Brushes. The ‘New Brush’ dialog box will be prompted
3. Choose ‘Pattern Brush’ option and click OK. The ‘Pattern Brush Options’ dialog box will be prompted next.
Adjust the size of the brush using the Scale handler and explore other options. Click OK to apply settings. The brush will now be visible in the Brushes panel as shown below. Now you can apply the brush to any path. For example, I create this path and applied the brush from the panel;
All seems well until now. Lets try applying this border to a rectangle. Draw a rectangle and then choose this brush from the Brushes Panel.
Oh dear god! This isn’t what I was looking for. First of all the size of the leaves is way too big for the rectangle, which we can easily adjust using the ‘Scale option’ in the ‘Pattern Brush Options’ window. The second and most important thing is that the corners are all empty. And why is that? The answer is simple. This is because we haven’t set any pattern for the corners. Look at the brushes panel.
We have opened a border brush from the Brushes Library (Open Brush Library > Borders > Borders_Novelty > Coffee Cups). If you observe carefully, there are sections in which the brush is broken into. The first section shows how the brush would be applied to the outer corners, middle sections show how the brush applied to a straight path and the last one shows how the brush applies to the inner corners.

In case of our brush, the first and the last sections are empty. In other words, we haven’t defined the designs that should be displayed around the corners. To make this more clear, double click on the border ‘Coffee Cups’.
What I mentioned earlier is depicted through pictures in this window. There are different designs based on the different corners that a border can take.

All we need to do now is define how our brush (‘Leaf’) would look around the corners. To do that, define the brush on the art board. I will give an angle of 25 to the original leaf we created.
Now select this new leaf and ALT + drag + drop onto the first section of our brush in the Brushes Panel. The Pattern Brush Options window will be prompted once again, but this time you will notice the new leaf as a corner design. Answered Jun, 06 2011

1,Create an object that you want to use for the pattern.

2,Choose Show Swatches from the Window menu.
3,Select either the Swatches or Brushes.

4,Select the object that is to be used for the pattern, and drag it to the Swatches palette.
5,Customize your pattern as described.

6,To fill an object, create an object using one of the drawing tools.

7,Select the object with the Selection tool.

8,Drag the brush or swatch into the selected object. Answered Apr, 11 2011

Here are some references, hope that will help you:

 

 1.Start with a new file. Use the Rectangle Tool on your tool bar and draw a thin rectangle.

 

 2.Using the Selection Tool drag it to create a line at the bottom. Repeat this step by pressing Ctrl + D to create a row of stripes.

 

 3.Right click mouse and choose Select All. Go to Object > Transform > Transform Each. Enter the values or use the slider to adjust the stripes to your liking. Enable the Random option to give stripes a random height.

 4.Choose the Warp Tool on your tool box. You can use the image settings as guide. To distort the stripes giving it a more natural look, take your Warp Tool and brush through the lines in one and horizontal direction.

 5.Image after applying the Warp Tool settings and painting over with the Warp Tool brush.

  6.Choose the Twirl Tool on your tool box. Double click to change the settings to your preference. Use medium to medium-small sized brush(es) to apply twirl on the grain. To do this, just click on different areas on the stripes. Remember not to press and rest the brush for too long on any area as it will over-distort the stripes.

7.Click on the Plucker Tool. Make your settings in the Plucker Tool. We pucker different sections of the stripes to make the irregular contract stripes.

 8.elect all the stripes and fill it with brown color. Draw a lighter brown shade rectangle with your Pen tool and send it to the back (a layer behind).

 9.Copy the light brown colored rectangle by pressing Ctrl + C, and then press paste Ctrl + F to paste it to the front.

 

Answered Nov, 02 2010