Fallingblox Designs on hiatus again

Hello loyal friends and followers, and thank you for your patience with me. Fallingblox Designs‘ social media presence went dark two weeks ago, at the worst possible time for a small creative business to do so — the start of the holiday gifting season.

You may have seen the previous iteration of this post while it was briefly up a couple of weeks ago. Shortly after I posted it, I was advised by a friend with experience in these matters to remove all mention of the incident from any public location until I’d had a chance to speak with a lawyer. I have been trying for two weeks to get a lawyer to respond, but at this point I am tired of waiting and I owe you an explanation. I have received some basic guidelines to what I should and should not say, and will do my best here.

It’s been a year and a half since the last time I had to do this. In that case, my home burned down and I lost almost everything I owned. I had to stop all my work and life responsibilities while I regrouped for a while. I have news on that front (short version: we’re finally proceeding with the rebuild!) and wanted my next post to be an uplifting one about how we’d faced adversity and came out victorious. But then something else happened.

As you may or may not be aware, I have a day job outside the city 3 days per week. Due to Covid, I’ve been trying to keep off public transit. I used to bicycle home from work most days, after taking my bike to work on the commuter rail. For the past year or so since work restarted, I’ve been biking in both directions. Mostly I keep to the bike paths which run from my home city to my workplace, with very little reason to ride on the streets. But I do ride on the streets when necessary, and on Tuesday (Nov 30) I was dropping something off at a friend’s house a few blocks from the path.

As you can probably guess from the direction of this narrative, that day didn’t go smoothly: I was hit by a car. At the recommendation of legal counsel, I’m leaving out all specifics and just saying that I have sustained an injury and I am not sure how long it will take to fully recover.

So what does this mean for Fallingblox Designs? In short, I need to dial everything back for a while. I’ve cancelled my virtual workshops where possible. I’m putting my Patreon on pause (they’ve already been notified). Patterns I was designing will need to slow down or stop, depending on how well I’m able to knit going forward. My social media posting will be paused for a month and we’ll re-evaluate beyond that. For those looking forward to my in-person appearances at Red Alder etc, I am assuming I will be recovered enough by February, but will update you if not.

Unlike last time, however, I still have the infrastructure I need to fulfill book and pattern orders, so that part of my business is still operational. I know I’ve missed the ideal time for holiday shipping of physical books and patterns, but if you are not concerned about timeliness, I am (with help from my wife) still capable of shipping. Otherwise, you can still get (and gift) my digital versions.

Stay tuned. I’ll update you as soon as I have a better idea of where things are going from here. In the meantime, if you want to support me, join my Patreon (you’ll be charged if/when it restarts), buy my books and patterns, tell your friends about my books and patterns, or (as I’ve lost the immediacy needed for something like a GoFundMe), toss something in the Tip Jar. And if you’re interested in my virtual workshops when they restart, sign up on the workshop interest lists to be informed.

Alasdair Post-Quinn, “Softwear Engineer,” Fallingblox Designs