The fabric cartel

Designer fabric lines -- good or bad?  Much discussion on the Quiltart list this week on this subject, sparked by reports of a lawsuit.  Seems an Author wrote a book illustrated by various quilts she had made, but the credits failed to mention that a certain quilt was made from fabrics designed by a Designer.  The Designer sued for copyright infringement.

As most lawsuits are, this one was settled, with the Author's Publishing Company agreeing to credit designers in similar situations.  But the discussion raged.  A lot of outrage, and some comments that it makes you want to give up using commercial fabrics entirely if that's the way they're going to be.

I was one of the many people who commented how it would be impossible (at least for me) to credit the designers of the commercial fabrics I use.  Many of the fabrics in my stash were purchased years ago, and many have been long since divested of their selvages.  I often slice off the selvages soon after purchase, or later if I need selvages of a certain color.  And that's not to mention the fabrics that arrived from somebody else's scraps and leftovers, or those that were recycled from an old dress.

But as the discussion proceeded, it got worse.  The defendant in the lawsuit revealed that she customarily receives fabric free from manufacturers, because she makes quilts that appear in books and magazines.  Apparently the quid pro quo is that she lists them prominently in the credits.

Then another would-be author revealed that she had approached a publisher with a book about (among other things) using fabrics from your stash to achieve good color, texture and contrast.  The publisher told her, "you'll have to re-make all of your examples with current fabrics because people only want to see what's available now....not what has been taken from your stash."

Someone else pointed out that fabrics have a shelf life only slightly longer than that of fish, and that many people appear at the fabric store with a magazine article in hand, only to be crushed to learn that the fabrics in the picture are no longer available.

I am deeply discouraged by this situation.  I have encountered a lot of beginning-to-intermediate quilters whose sewing skills are well developed but who have no confidence in any aspect of design, whether it's developing their own compositions or choosing their own fabrics and colors.  It has been my objective as a teacher to liberate quilters from ever having to use other people's patterns, and I have realized that I need to broaden that objective to also liberate them from having to use other people's fabric palettes.

I recognize that it may be good business for everybody -- publishers, fabric manufacturers, authors, designers -- to participate in this daisy chain of mutual promotion.  But the losers are the quilters who are encouraged at every turn to outsource their fabric selection to the design sensibilities of somebody else.

I've mentioned in this blog that I am working on a book that seeks to help beginning-to-intermediate quilters develop confidence to make their own designs.  I've made six new quilts in the last couple of months to illustrate the book, using fabrics from my stash, and have also found at least a half dozen in my pile of old quilts that use the same concepts referenced in the text.  I guess it's a good thing I'm going to self-publish rather than be told that I'd have to remake everything with currently available fabrics.

If the fabric manufacturers, the publishers, the designers and many of the authors are all in collusion to get people to go mindlessly to the store and buy WHAT'S NEW, where will the innovation come from?  How will the artists emerge from the muck?  I guess it's up to us independent voices, the bloggers, the self-published authors, the artists who stay out of bed with the power structure, to cry in the wilderness that you can escape.  You can learn to choose your own fabrics and patterns, you can work from your stash, you don't have to buy WHAT'S NEW (and for that matter, maybe you don't have to buy anything at all!!!!).

Just finished this quilt top earlier this week as an illustration for my book -- everything came from the stash, some of it is decades old.  Shame on me  (but I like it...)

The writing on the wall

News flash from Hobby Lobby: apparently it's trendy to put letters on your wall.

I found all kinds ready to hang, some classically beautiful:

some pretty good-looking, if you like faux antique:

and some not so good-looking:

And many more ready for you to paint, decoupage, wrap or whatever.  I counted at least nine different kinds and sizes, made of wood or cardboard, which I won't bore you with.  Here's the best of the bunch, typographically speaking:

I suppose that most people who buy these letters will buy enough to spell out their names, even though that's typographically questionable. All-cap words are often hard to read, especially with godawful typefaces such as the pink and blue glitter jobs above. What, you didn't notice the glitter in the photo?  Sorry, bad photography.

In my household there are lots and lots and lots of letters on display, but sitting by themselves rather than spelling things.  And all of them led a functional life before they retired to become decor.  Some are printer's type:

Others are stencils:

And some aren't technically letters at all.  This is a piece of rusty metal that my friend Debby found on the railroad tracks and gave to me because it sure looks like a B and she knows I will give a letter a better home than just about anybody.

You know I'm a snob about letters, so it won't surprise you that I like my "real" letters better than the made-in-China models.  Either way, there are a lot worse things you could put on your walls than the alphabet.

Just try not to put this on your sofa:

Photo suite 12 -- in bloom

Sign of the week

Lace invasion

What could be more fun on a beautiful spring day than to go to your favorite museum and apply doilies to trees?  I was invited to participate in this "lace invasion" by my fiber art friend Bette Levy, whose show opens this evening at the Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany IN.  Bette's work includes a lot of crocheting, and the bright idea was had to do a crocheted installation on the lawn and steps of the museum.

Bette and some others had worked ahead, crocheting between doilies to make large expanses of lacy coverings, so that all they had to do was wrap the expanses around the tree and close up the back side.  On my tree we were more improvisational, simply applying the doilies to the tree with push pins and then crocheting cords between them.

Because our tree was small and had several branches at working level, we were able to work up quite an intricate network of cords and doilies.

By contrast, the people with the largest tree just made a single big wrap.

People also put doilies over the architecture.

There were unexpected obstacles to working in situ: where to put your hands and your thread! When there's a branch in the way you have to be able to adapt your stance.  Here's me in action, trying to make my wrists bend in ways my grandmothers never taught me.  (thanks to Suzi Z for the last two photos)

Stuff I liked at FNF 4

My favorite quilt at "Form, Not Function" was made by Pat Pauly.  Who knows why judges choose one thing over another, but if I had been in their shoes I would have given this one a nice prize.  This is the first year FNF has not specified a maximum size, and opening the show to larger works has made for dramatic display. 

Here's the long view of Pat's quilt, hung at the end of the neoclassical Carnegie Library (if you have a Carnegie Library in your town you know exactly what this building looks like).  From 85 feet away, you can't see much detail but the complementary colors have enough presence to make you want to stroll across to see more.

Pat Pauly, Pink Leaf 4 (Yellow)

The quilt, the largest piece in the show, is a surface design extravaganza.  Pat has dyed, stamped, screened and painted designs of varying scale onto her fabrics, both  before and after piecing, as well as incorporating some commercial prints.

It takes a sure hand to combine so many different motifs, scales, techniques and colors and still have a cohesive and appealing composition.  But Pat has clearly showed everybody who's boss. 

dense parallel quilting in some areas, "drawn lines" in others

it takes guts to apply surface design on top of already-pieced work

fine-line piecing, commercial prints, with surface design over the top

sometimes the motif was on the bottom layer, not the top