Earlier in the year we lost a creative crochet designer named Marinke aka Wink from ACreativeBeing.com to depression. I have since been noticing that people have been creating Mandalas for Marinke using the hashtag #MandalasforMarinke and thought I would jump on board, this would be a way for me to get back to doing what I love after dealing with depression myself.

If you have been following me since I first started this blog you may have noticed that in the last year I haven’t really been blogging. I was blogging one pattern a week until last year until the depression hit me. My world turned upside down. Someone had been stealing from me for years and I had no idea until something very important was stolen and can never be replaced to then come online to see that people were stealing my work and offering it free. It really hurt to know that people would steal from me, knowing I offer over half of my work for free, the views on this blog are how I pay to offer patterns free. I broke down and decided to take the time to focus on me, my life, my kids. Crochet became a hobby and my blog got put on the back burner.

I didn’t know of Marinke or her work before she lost her battle to depression but I was really saddened by the news for I myself was working so hard on my own depression it made me sad to see someone lose the battle. I have worked really hard on myself over the last year and I have come a long way, I am in a much better place and am now looking forward getting back to crochet and my blog.

To start I would like to offer this Mandala for Marinke free on my blog (Paid Pattern available on Ravelry.) to celebrate her life and creativity as well as to raise awareness about depression. I hope that I will be the only one offering this pattern free and also I would like to say that as a person dealing with depression that you take care when leaving comments for bloggers, some of us do this as a way to deal with our depression, there is another person on the other end reading your comment and they have feelings.

For the love of crochet, share links, not patterns!