Thursday, February 21, 2013

A question about embroidery patterns



I'm confused about cross stitch and embroidery patterns people sell online.  As far as I can tell, someone puts up a lovely, high-res image (well, line drawing) on Etsy, looking perhaps like this cheerful clock from Shutterstock, and you're on your honor to pay them to send you a digital copy of the image rather than just printing out the image from their shop yourself for free.  Is it really all on the honor system?  (Kits I understand. I buy kits. But digital image files?)

Cross stitch is similar - it's a bit harder to back-form a chart and pick out your own thread colors, but (especially with one-color designs) it's still basically "here's a grid with the squares in the picture filled in with red thread - you can see it easily in the photo, but please pay me to send it to you rather than just doing it yourself."  Indeed, for out-of-print kits, it's fairly common to find an old photo online and work it out yourself, since you can't get the kit anymore (the old small pictures of English Heritage sites are good examples here).  So is buying the digital pattern just done because it's the right thing to do and you want to support the artist?  (Not that there's anything wrong with that.). Or is there something I'm missing?

(Embroidery patterns count as art for copyright purposes, I believe; so would a cross-stitch image, most likely.  Knitting does not - I mean, the words of the pattern are copyright as written material, but the technique is not copyrightable and the finished object would likely be a useful good rather than art, legally speaking.  That's why you're not going to have much luck suing someone who looked at a photo of your baby sweater and worked out the pattern on their own.  It's also a lot more work to do that than to right-click and download a photo instead of paying someone to email it to you.  Just like with quilt patterns, generally a combination of public domain patterns (if they're even copyrightable in the first place), but you pay for them to keep from having to work out all the math yourself.)

Friday, February 15, 2013

Music Class blouse done!

The hardest part was sewing on the buttons.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Free Motion Quilting

It's remarkably easy! Trying out the quilting foot on my new-to-me Bernina. The unmarked spiral was only a bit hard to see, so drew feathers and a star; only glitch was that I didn't lower the feed dogs and so took larger stitches on one leg of the star.

I'd been avoiding it, hearing everyone talk about how hard it is, and especially as I am no good at embroidery, but it's really not hard at all!

Now just to baste the windy days quilt and get started!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Sweater

I made this baby sweater years ago, but messed up the edge - rolled hem one side, garter stitch the other - so kept it, and now I have a baby who can wear it!




(Eh, giving up on rotating the photos, time to get this out of my drafts folder! Turn your head and it looks fine!)

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Young Gadabout Baby Coatdress

This was originally my Ravellennic Games project, but I did the back first, the needles were too small, and I had to tear it out, so I lost steam.  I finally finished it a week or two ago.  It's remarkably hard to get good shots of a baby with a cell phone camera... and I have to find time to get the pictures off of the good camera if I want to show you those! 
Ravelry link here.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Skirt done!

And, in about an hour, with a kid crawling around, I managed to sew (but not iron!) the Oliver + S Music Class skirt - it's very fast! Just need a bit of elastic. (And a better photo... Soon!)

How much fabric does the music class blouse require?

For what it's worth, the size 6-12 and 12-18 month blouses can easily be cut from 2/3 yard each, and possibly less, in case you were wondering...as the pattern says it's one yard for all sizes 6 months to 4T!  The remnant bin can still be your friend for both blouse and skirt.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Music Class

So, when I went to the store to get a pattern for an outfit for my upcoming nephew, I may have gotten distracted...

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Windy Days Done!

The corners are from the same yellow as the back; not sure about binding yet, but may just turn the back forward...might make an interesting effect with the matching corners?  But quilting comes first - haven't decided about that yet either (style or color)!