Oh Hey Everyone!
I had a little fun with that title.
I just got through reading some of the banter back and forth from the now infamous copyright spat between C&T publishing/Emily Cier -vs- Kate Spain/Moda…see here for Leah Day’s take on it (I know, I’m a little late to reading about this, but it just hit me as oh so funny as I was pulling all these fabrics together to design a quilt, kinda felt like introductions were necessary).
The quilt I’m designing is for a special little someone due to arrive later this year (yes, the word is I’m going to be an Aunt again!). How exciting!!!
I’ve just a little time to put it together so I’ve been using my new program (EQ7) to help me work up a design.
This was my rough in, loosely inspired by a Hugs and Kisses Quilt on display at the Bungalow Quilting & Yarn Shop, which our group visited during my recent quilt retreat in Wisconsin, where I picked up this Tula Pink fabric…
During my research about how to construct a Hugs and Kisses block I stumbled upon that little copyright thread I mentioned…which you all know leads you down a path that ended up being way more time consuming than I needed.
So in the back of my mind I kept thinking about all the fabric we quilters and sewers have and would it be actually possible to know who designs this stuff once it gets cut from the bolt, washed, folded and stashed away into your collection? Believe you me, I couldn’t even begin to tell you who drew up the designs on my shelves. I know some, but 98% of it was bought because I liked it not because of the name on the selvage.
So that gets me back to designing this little quilt. To make the Hugs and Kisses (a series of X’s and O’s) I wanted to use a combination of a few techniques which I’ve learned along the way over my quilting career. One technique I learned from making the snowball blocks from the Quilt In A Day series and the other technique I learned from following Bonnie Hunter’s idea for making the most use out of Bonus Triangles. The block is going to be made using two Square templates, one from Bungalow and the other from Omnigrid. So just to cover my bases here I thought I’d go ahead and mention my references…just so you all know and everything…
So as you can see, I have been inspired by many people, places and things for this quilt. Now it is up to me to make it my own and put all that inspiration together.
My final design for this quilt came to be after working out this fun little quirk that I could use ALL of my bonus triangles as a border…without further ado, here is Mmmwhaah! (A Hugs & Kisses Quilt)
Stay tuned right here to watch Mmmwhaah! come to life, from beginning to final quilting!
But what do you all think of this whole business about figuring out what designer made your fabric? I just don’t think it’s practical unless you are using a specific line exclusively…AND happen to know what it is!
More later!
Happy Quilting, Happy Sewing!
~Cathy
Sewing.for.Life! 
Cathy, thank you so much for your link to Leah Day’s Copyright Terrorism article! I hadn’t seen it yet and it was a great read. I agree with her wholeheartedly As much as I love Kate Spain fabric, I, too, won’t be cutting it anymore. In fact, it’s coming out of a few projects I’ve already got in the pipeline. It will be a pain to replace, but well worth the time and effort. If Spain doesn’t like that her fabric is a supply used in a long chain of creative processes then she needs to stop making fabric for commercial sale and make it only for her personal use. To create a product, a commodity, for use and consumption and then complain about its use is a draconian attitude at best and I’m polite enough not to mention what it is at worst. Who freaks out next, the thread company? No one stole from her. She got her money from the original point of sale of the fabric, as did Moda. Let’s be honest, C&T had to settle. I sincerely doubt they have the financial resources to fight Kate Spain when Moda is backing her. I also absolutely love Leah Day’s comparison to copyright in the fashion world. It puts quilting in perspective as the utilitarian trade it is. I fully respect intellectual property and support copyright but not neurotic attempts to claim copyright over the public domain of utilitarian trade (fashion, patterns, ingredient lists, colors, shapes, sizes) to validate for oneself that one is someone important. -Jamie Gilman, 2Q&C
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Hi Jamie,
I can see it hit a nerve with you too. I went through my fabrics and I can’t say I own or have used any Kate Spain…but who knows, ya know? I’m still unsure if it was Kate or Moda who initiated the lawsuit but I’m thinking more and more that it would have had to have been the Kate Spain team because you’d think Moda probably runs into this stuff all the time?? I get the whole copyright thing but I’ve not seen the tote bag they were talking about so maybe Kate has a point but I do think the lawsuit was extreme. I wonder if a phone call to C&T would have been enough, ya know? I mean, is the quilting/fabric industry really so cut throat?
Thanks for the comment! And I can’t wait to read more about what’s happening in your quilting!
~Cathy
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Thanks Cathy! When I read the link you posted, I really got to thinking and wanted to see the tote bag so I dug around on Google for a minute and found it. You can see it at the bottom of this post: http://cindybrick.blogspot.com/2012/03/tote-bags-and-copyrights.html
It is my understanding that C&T heard she was upset, apologized, and pulled the tote from the market but that wasn’t good enough for Spain and she sent her lawyers after them anyway over the tote and the book. My thought on the matter is simple: I’m okay with Spain asking the tote be pulled because the photo they put on the tote is cropped WAY too close. It isn’t a photo of a utilitarian object being used in real life and side of the the tote showing in the photo is not clearly marked as coming from C&T and/or marketing the book. People familiar with the fabric can easily be confused that this is a Kate Spain or Moda product which is misleading. Quilt fabric is no more special than any other utilitarian object and Spain needs to get over herself. If someone takes a photo of a city and uses it in marketing, they do not have to get the permission of the building architects and the building supply companies to do it. I know this is an old story being it happened a year ago, but I see it happening again. It will come to a legal head at some point. I don’t think all of the quilting industry is like this, but I have met a couple of local women selling patterns who are. In those cases it seems to be an overinflated sense of ego combined with a control freak personality. They’re really unpleasant people.
I really liked your weight loss journey quilt by the way. I think that is a stellar idea!! I’ve always heard of quilters who use quilting to tell their stories but I never internalized that concept until I saw you doing it. It’s kind of like using charm bracelets to tell your story. -Jamie
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So many good points! And thanks for the link to the tote bag. I don’t know, after seeing the tote it DOES look like a quilt, but I can see Kate’s point. NOT her point about getting credits in Emily’s book though. Since when did that become what has to be done? Aye-uggh!
I once posted here about using Ricky Tims’ binding method and shared where I got the info…from his video but I didn’t say how to do it. I know Ricky spent a lot of time and invested money into making that video. He commented on the blog to thank me for the link but it is kind of funny though…I get all kinds of traffic behind the scenes looking for the Ricky Tims ‘Method’!!!
His technique is more about the process and not necessarily unique to piped binding. I’ve seen piped bindings all over the place, but the way he does it is unique to him…so …I get the whole bit about wanting to get the credit.
Anyway…I’m just going to continue to credit the hell out of people where it’s needed!!
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So here is an interesting follow-up to our discussion… I found this post: http://annahergert.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/a-word-about-ethics-photographing-quilt-shows/
In my opinion, if you are publicly displaying your work, you do not have an expectation of privacy. Nor should you expect that everyone who snaps a picture of your work is going to present you with a permission slip so they can post their picture on facebook and give you credit for everything in the world. This is ridiculous. We as everyday people walking around do not have an expectation of privacy, much less when we ourselves and our work on display for everyone to see. Is it rude take photos? Yes, but so is not letting people out of the elevator before you shove your way in. It seems that much of the people making this noise are more about glory-hounding and begging for attention than anything else. Would I want credit for a beautiful piece of work that makes its way around the Internet, sure, but you won’t find me brow beating people and demanding it like it is something that is owed to me. [sigh] The more I look around online, the more I find things like this. I think I’m going to stop looking. 😉
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