We sell a lot of patterns at the Little Hunting Creek Company. Hundreds, maybe even thousand of different patterns – new, vintage, quilts and clothing, home dec and more. Whatever looks interesting to me, I sell on the website. Like puppies and kittens, most patterns find happy homes; they rarely come back
Once in a while, someone will find that they have bought two of the same pattern, or they bought the wrong size or some other innocuous reason and they send the pattern back for exchange or refund. That’s all part of doing business and it doesn’t happen often. We either exchange the pattern for a different one or give a refund. A plain and simple transaction and it is no trouble.
But in the case of the Yoga Bag Pattern, nothing was simple.
It says on the website: Handy tote pattern designed to carry everything you need to yoga class: mat, eye mask (pattern included), water bottle, keys, lock for personal locker, and more.
From Patterns by Annie
I decided to offer it because my daughter is a yoga fiend, and I thought that (silly me) people might like to make their own yoga bags. I had no idea that this decision would come to haunt me.
A few days after the pattern was listed, someone bought it and it was mailed to them. But this person wrote back that the pattern had no pattern pieces! Just measurements and instructions! That's not a pattern!
(The pieces are all rectangles or squares and do not need pattern pieces. Only measurements - like a quilt pattern. Does it amuse you when Simplicity or Butterick includes a pattern piece that is nothing but a rectangle or square that you could easily measure for yourself?? It amuses me. Perhaps some people can’t measure?)
So we told her to just send it back if it wasn’t what she wanted; we’ll be happy to give her a refund.
Then another person bought one. And she complained that it WASN'T A YOGA BAG!
And this made Mr. Hunting Creek declare, “What part of Yoga Bag Pattern by Patterns By Annie would lead someone to believe that it is an actual YOGA BAG?”
And this led me to think that maybe Yoga and sewing don’t mix.
After much thought, I’ve decided that this pattern is cursed. It has Bad karma.
Perhaps Yoga Bags should not be sewn! If the Universe wants you to have a yoga bag, one will present itself to you. You can’t make a yoga bag. Yoga bags should just come into being. Like rainbows or unicorns, yoga mats…stuff like that.
My dad used to have a sign over his desk that read, “Opportunity doesn’t knock. It calls you on the phone and asks a stupid question.”
Even though his official position was that the customer was always right, even if totally wrong, he taught us that the customer always deserved to be treated as IF they were right.
So in the interest of harmony and customer happiness, we will no longer sell the Yoga Bag Pattern. For people seeking harmony and balance and such, my experience with yoga sewists has been that they (so far) appear to be very poor readers.
