The second time I met the Bloggess, she talked about Neil Gaiman’s advice about doing an audiobook, “pretend you’re good at it.” I found an interview on glamour.com where she talks about it.

JENNY LAWSON: [English author] Neil Gaiman once gave me some advice that has served me well: “Pretend you’re good at it.” He gave me the advice when I was terrified about recording my own audiobook, but it’s been good advice for so many points in my life. Every time I get scared or feel like I’m not going to be good enough at something, I say that mantra to myself. “Pretend you’re good at it.” I say it a lot.

I immediately added the quote to my long list of possible cross stitches to do, and I recently dusted the idea off and got to work. I used some of the metallic Kreinik thread I got, and I really enjoyed working with it.
It stitches up really nicely and I absolutely love the metallic pink. I also had a nice surprise when I was looking at the Kreinik website and realized I was using a glow-in-the-dark thread! I had no idea the entire time I was working on it, and when I realized I ran into the bathroom and turned off all the lights and marveled in the glowing. It’s hard to see in the picture, but I assure you that the glowing is fantastic.

I decided this would be the perfect free pattern for October because everyone should stitch this up and put it somewhere they can constantly be reminded to pretend you’re good at it.

Download the PDF here – Free Pattern Friday – October 2013

There are more free patterns to download here, and patterns to purchase here at my Etsy.