Need opinions on how to get sketches in Illustrator to become vectors

Have Illustrator CS6, Medium Baboo tablet. I can draw well but it seems almost impossible to get the quality of my sketch work to go to Illustrator in a way I am happy with. I do not like what I see from Imagetrace either. This is largely due to my inexperience in the process from sketch to vector to t-shirt. Can anyone give me some insight on how you approach this process from a pad of paper to Illustrator? Appreciate any help you can offer.

Do a google search on it as I have seen at least 2 on taking a sketch to a T-shirt in Illustrator, can't remember where! I do a lot of cartoons for bi-monthly newsletters and they are all drawn out on paper first, scanned then brought in traced and then coloured and modified and it is not that complicated. I use Black & White logo when tracing and 300 dpi for the scan

Have a look here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010...tch-to-vector/
or if you like a vid,: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSU6BxgU1p0

there is no magic bullet here - if you intend to convert your sketches to vector then you need to sketch in a way that will make this easier rather than difficult, and that means basically solid well defined strokes - that said delicate work is possible, but it may take some trial and error, bit difficult to say more without seeing example[s]

There is a utility called Vector Magic http://vectormagic.com/home that can convert a bitmap to vectors. It does a really good job. You can trace/convert a few bitmap images on the site but then you have to purchase the product and it is not cheap. But if you do a lot of bitmap conversions to vector then it is a good tool to have.

And VM can output to AI and EPS and PDF file formats.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. They were all great. It does sound like I am making ths harder than it needs to be. Like anything you need to practice the process. Appreciate the input. Take care.