Do It Afraid

In my devotional reading last week I came upon a phrase that really struck me- Do It Afraid.  The point of the passage was that in order to move forward in our lives sometimes we need to do things even if they are scary!  We might fail, or the thing we want to try may not work out, but we can't let fear keep us from experiencing the wonderful things that lie before us.

Quilter's Primer - Retro version

Boy, that hit me!  I have so many things that I want to do, but many times I back out because of my fear and don't even try.  I am very much a perfectionist, so I often feel like if my efforts aren't going to be up to my standards, well I shouldn't even bother.  I was feeling very much like this about a pattern that I've been wanting to publish.  Even though I taught this as a class twice to much approval I was still not convinced that my idea was worthy of being polished up and put out for sale.

Quilter's Primer - Brights!

Oh, I had all the excuses - it's too long, it's too big of a job to edit it all and put it into one document, it won't look professional enough.  Spurred on by this small phrase I decided to just feel the fear and go ahead and do it!  It helped that I have a touch of a cold and this is something I can do while I am resting in the recliner, as well.

Quilter's Primer - cat fabric!

I was delighted that Word 2013 in compatablility mode not only preserved all my illustrations perfectly, but in most cases made them even easier to work with and improve.  This was a big fear because upgrading from my antique version of Word did not do well with the patterns I had done in a different program that I used when Windows 8 rejected my old version of Word. Because I was working with 12 different documents plus several pages of templates and the need to make it all cohesive it took several hours.  Then I had to figure out how to get it all into one PDF file, so it did take hours of work to get it done, but I did it!  And I am thrilled with how it turned out!  Now the test is whether anyone else will like it, but it is out there now, so I can move on to the next scary thing on my list (and there are quite a few of those,,,).


Now that I am energized by getting this pattern done, it's time to work on getting some quilts done this week - the following week looks really crazy, so I am looking forward to focusing on getting some work done in the sewing room.  I have a custom quilt that I want to get pieced, a finished top to baste and quilt, plus a few more fun projects to work on - so I guess I won't be bored.  I am encouraged to work on some of these projects, even though some of them do make me feel a little anxious I know that I can keep moving forward and do my best without letting fear paralyze me and keep me from even trying!  Knowing that faith is stronger than fear is very empowering and I am looking forward to seeing the results of stepping out and trying new things!

Don't let fear hold you back, go ahead and try something new!