Pattern Cover
ZEN BLOCKS
Pattern Weights by Tansy Designs
I’ve been working on a bag pattern, off and on, for over two years, but this is not that story!
This story starts with a minuscule need. Ok, a want. I wanted pattern weights because I was sick of using spare scissors and tea pots and snack bowls to hold my pattern pieces down. I decided that I wanted to fill them with rice for some easy to procure weight. And I got started. It wasn’t hard. I know how to make boxed corners. But I couldn’t find a funnel. So I had to make a cone out of cardstock. I ended up with rice on the floor. But when I was done, I had a cute little block and, I wanted to make another. I whipped out another 3 and viola my pattern weight need was met. But I wanted more. I wanted so many more. Then my older daughter, C wanted one. She was studying for midterms and just wanted to smoosh it. I get it. Their great for smooshing. The rice grains whisper a soft sigh as they brush past one another. I quickly made one more and popped it in the microwave for 30 seconds before presenting it to C. She snuggled it and held it in her palms. She held it up to her face and soaked in its warmth. It longer was a pattern weight but something to bring calm on a stressed mind. That’s when I came up with the name Zen Blocks. The are calming to make. They are calming to hold. And, they are magnificent to look at, stacked or lined up or tossed in a pile.
Next… my friend Natalie, of SewHungryHippie, came over for a little sewing day. She saw them and wanted to make some. When I told her, I just whipped them up and wrote some notes down on a sticky note she said, “You need to write up that pattern”! She has tons of patterns available on her website and Etsy. She’s a marketing genius. She’s not afraid to try new things. She said it so easily that I thought, “Sure”. Even though I had been working on this other pattern for years and couldn’t pull the trigger with poking and prodding and encouragement from every direction. I decided I could write up and release this one. It was short, sweet and unpretentious. So I wrote it up. Easy. I sent it over to Natalie for a proofread and pattern testing. She made a bunch right then and fired notes back to me. Then, I started making diagrams. Easy. Then I started tweaking the diagrams. Rabbit hole. My favorite kind of rabbit hole. Lots of teeny tiny change to be made. A lot of over-thinking to be done. Better ways to do the same thing with very little differnce in the end.
Then Coronavirus hit the fan. And I mean we went from washing our hands and being horrified at what was happening in China and Italy, to cancelling school, cancelling work, and shutting down the country in the matter of a week. Well, now I have plenty of time for rabbit holes. So, I started working on my website, a project I had abandoned over a year ago. I would hop back and forth between the Zen Blocks pattern and the Tansy website project.
Then Natalie asked about the pattern again. She offered, again, to host the pdf download on her site, since I have no way to sell it. She took pictures, she styled a Cover Photo. She wrote up a whole listing and told me it was ready when I was. How can I continue to drag my feet? I can’t so I saved that sucker as a pdf and emailed over to her. Next thing I know she’s promoting it on her Instagram. Shoot, I need to put it on mine. How do I market my own stuff? I love to talk up other people’s things that I love, but I am not a big fan of pedaling my own ideas. But I did it. And here we go.
Big thanks to Natalie for sticking that foot on my back and giving a tiny push. Also, thank you for being a safety net for me!