Not Cool.

I’ve been in a blogging funk lately.

I’ve been sewing and working like crazy (including a quilt for Market), but blogging . . . . not so much.

I guess it’s because I’ve had several instances lately where my work has appeared on other blogs without my permission.  So what, you say???  Well, it is my work.  I work hard on it.  It takes up a lot of my time and I’m trying to turn this blog into a business.  I love staying and home and being there for my kids, volunteering at their schools and scouts, and helping out wherever I can.  I love that I can work at home and design quilts, handbags, kids clothes, tutorials and sewing patterns and teach something new or inspire others.  Playing with gorgeous fabrics and yarns doesn’t hurt either.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to write this post.  I purposely avoid discussing serious issues here.  If you’re here you want to read about what I’m sewing or working on or to learn something new — not read about something tragic that’s happened in the world or the latest buzz on twitter.

I love the online crafting community.  Everyone is so nice.  (I can’t stress that enough!)  Ideas flow and creativity prospers.  If an idea inspires you, credit is given.  But sometimes, people copy your work and don’t give you credit.

In most cases, the person who copied your work didn’t intend it to be harmful and I’ve found that they didn’t realize their mistake and the problem is resolved quickly.

However, there are a very small few who do try to pass of the work of others as their own or blatantly copy a tutorial someone else made onto their site without permission.

Not cool.

I’m not going to disclose the last site who copied verbatim one of my tutorials (and used my photos) which put me over the edge.  I discovered it quite by accident and I contacted the blogger myself with no success.  I eventually enlisted the help of my fellow modern quilters who commented on the post over and over until the individual finally did remove the post.

As a result of this and other similar instances lately, I’ve had to make changes to my copyright policy. Use of images and linking was a bit more loose before, but now I feel like I have to make a strict policy of no use of images unless you get my consent. So a quick email, tweet or message on FB and 99.9% of the time I’ll say sure you can post that photo of my tutorial, but I’m asking you to respect my work and get permission before you use it.  That said, I want you to feel free link to my work on your blog/site and to pin my work to Pinterest without request.

You’ll also start seeing watermarks on my photos.  (Like you see above.)  I hate to do this to the photos because I feel that sometimes it takes away or distracts from what your eye should naturally see, but I need to protect my work and this is a simple fix.

Thanks for listening and I promise some fun stuff in the near future!