I Did Some Old Fashioned Tracing.

I finally got out my rain jacket pattern and started tracing the pieces. Tracing and cutting out the pattern pieces is my least favorite part of sewing. Some of my friends love it but to me it's messy and overwhelming and it's just the step getting in the way of me getting on with it! I used to never trace my patterns and just cut them to size (still hated it) but since I started investing in indy patterns I've made myself trace (the difference in price being very motivational to use the pattern again).

This is how I trace my pattern pieces.
I tape them to the window and then trace them onto
freezer paper. I often wonder if my neighbors think I nuts.

Sometimes I feel that life is like tracing a sewing pattern. I know what my big goals are (sew a rain jacket) but I have to wait and trace and when I pull out that giant tissue paper of pattern pieces I become quickly overwhelmed. In life I feel the same way a lot. I have goals: open an etsy shop, write a novel, raise two children, but I can't jump to the finished product and so many times I can't even get started because I'm overwhelmed with the first step. Finding time to make the product for the shop (to say nothing of photographing it and setting up the internet space), making myself sit and write when the story feels so flat and silly, eighteen years of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.... You get the idea.

But here's what happened when I finally started tracing the pattern today. I noticed that half the pieces were in a different size group, I could fold those up and put them back. Then I started tracing. One piece at a time I felt the puzzle coming together. One chomp of the scissors after one chomp, Pandora playing in the background. I stopped for lunch, I stopped to read a story to the kids, then I went back to it and before I knew it I had traced and cut all the pieces. Life is like that too, isn't it? Instead of focusing on all the millions of imagined steps from here to there we just need to focus on the one right in front of us. For me being overwhelmed can be paralyzing but today I think God showed me that I don't need to be overwhelmed I can take it one step at a time. Decide what I really need to worry about (is any one going to buy my novel doesn't really matter at this point since there isn't one) Start off the shop with a few pincushions and a few aprons, love the kids as much as possible, and for Heaven's sake sit down and right a page already!!

One step at a time sweet Jesus. One step at a time. (I'm not really sure if that's how the hymn goes I'm terrible with lyrics).