Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The Story Behind The Name: Designs by Diligence



There have been a lot of new people who have found my little blog in the last year. People who have no idea who I am so I figured I should give some more back ground about who I am. By now I think you have been to my about page, If not you can start there and come back to this. I'm a preacher's wife so my life decisions always fall in the lines of what I think God would want for myself and my family.

There are a couple of parables in the Bible that make me wiggle in my pew. They make me vulnerable and uncomfortable, But in a good way. They stretch me to be better than I am. The first is Matthew 25: 14-30 the parable of the talents. This parable has always been tough for me because I know I would be just like the servant who just stored the money. My thrifty side always says, "keep the money safe, save it for a rainy day." I really have to stretch myself to be the servant that comes up with ideas to grow investment so to say.

The other parable is Luke 18: 1-8 The Persistant Widow, or the Diligent Widow. I am very creative person, with that often comes the attitude of, "Meh, that's good enough."  In College when I was studying these verses (I went to Bible College and graduated with a Youth and Family Ministry Degree), I took on these verses as a way to challenge myself to be better. Someone who is more willing to take risks and more willing to be persistent to go back and perfect my work.

I put the word diligence on everything as a reminder to myself that I can always try again, no matter the outcome. I can take the risk and I can take the time to do things again.

My very first pattern.

Crocheting and knitting did not come easily for me. I cried all through my first lesson in crochet (and I was in College). I had to try again and again and again before I started to get it right. When my vacation was over I went back to school and I thought I had my new skill down, and one day someone was watching me crochet and they said "what stitch is that?' I said, "It's the single crochet." They proceeded to tell me no that wasn't the right way to do it at all. I had been doing the wrong thing for who knows how long, so I had to retrain myself to do it the right way.

With Knitting I was agonizingly slow. It has taken me a lot of years to get to where I am now. It's all second nature to me now. I can do both without looking. I am where I am now because I kept trying and I didn't give up.

Now to the name of the blog. When I signed up for Ravelry in 2011, I had already adapted the word Diligence into my everyday life as my email and other social media tags. So it was a natural fit to be Diligence on Ravelry.

I started designing crochet patterns for an online magazine called Crochetvolution soon after joining Ravelry. My creativity started outpacing my submissions for the magazine and I was encouraged to start a blog. I used my Ravelry name, and called it Designs by Diligence. The rest is history.

The Mod Mum CAL coming soon.

I love teaching, I have a passion for the fiber arts, and I'm super creative, so keeping a blog has been a perfect fit. My goal is to be an encourager, and instructor for new ideas and patterns in the fiber arts industry. Thank you for following me through this journey. It's been so fun and I hope you keep sticking around. If this is your first time here you can Subscribe to the blog.
You will get an email every time there is a new post, usually that happens on a Tuesday.

I would also love it if you followed me on Facebook I will be starting a brand new CAL for a scrapghan in January all the action for that pattern will be happening there.

More Stories found on Designs by Diligence

Tears in Baby Hats

The things we do for yarn


No comments:

Post a Comment