Work In Progress Wednesday...

It's another snowstorm-y day here in Freddy Beach! The third day in the last six school days for schools to be closed. The white stuff has been falling steadily all morning and it's adding up! I was out this morning for an appointment, and am glad I can just stay in (and sew) the rest of the day! The driving is NOT good at all...
I am working on a table centre, a variation for the scrap quilt class I'm teaching later this month. I'm trying to get several "variations" done for the class so students have a choice of project design and size. This piece is small so it won't take long to complete, in fact I hope to have it  all together, layered and ready to quilt by tonight. I'm heading out of province tomorrow for a few days so I want this "ready to roll" when I return. The class I'm preparing is based on a simple unit called a shaded four patch, or Mary's Triangles. This term was coined by Sally Schneider of Albuquerque NM in her book ScrapMania ~ More Quick Pieced Scrap Quilts.
Teaching a method or project that someone else has designed or created brings up the whole issue of copyright. My friend Karen Neary of  Sew Karen-ly Created (quilt and pattern designer, award-winning quiltmaker, author and teacher) has recently written a number of excellent posts on copyright issues. I urge you to read them all. There are ten posts, and yes, some are lengthy. But they are well written, excellent reading and contain very good info that all quilters and teachers should be aware of. Heck, any quilter who uses a pattern, magazine or book should read them!!  Karen has put a huge amount of time and effort into writing up this info to "educate" us all. I strongly urge you to read it all by clicking here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Many people think it is difficult to contact a pattern designer or company to seek permission to teach a design, or a method, or whatever. My recent experience will show you just how easy it is... As I mentioned earlier, Sally Schneider, author of a number of scrap quilt books and patterns, came up with an easy method for making this block unit. A quick Google search gave me the info I needed to contact her. (I simply type in "Quilter Mary Jones", or whatever the name - works every time!) I emailed her telling her what I wanted to teach in a class, and asked her permission to use her method. I asked if she would require my students to purchase her patterns. She promptly replied, within a day or so, and gave me her written permission to teach her method in my class, as long as I made up my own
notes and illustrations (which I would do anyway). She was very gracious and helpful and did not require a bulk pattern purchase. I did order a ruler and another gadget from her and sent off a Money Order. Upon discovering she had been "misquoted" for the postal shipping rate, she contacted me and offered to send me one of her patterns to make up the difference that she had "overcharged" me. She also offered a generous discount on her ruler if we made an order after the class. Now how great is that? She was most pleasant and helpful, and responded quickly. Not difficult at all. SO- don't be afraid to contact a pattern designer to seek permission. After reading Karen's posts- you will know it IS the right thing to do... FAR too many quilters and teachers are breaking copyright laws these days...
On a final note, Sally's Magic Triangle Ruler arrived in today's mail. (God bless those mail carriers, out in this storm today!!) So now I'm off to try it out while I finish up my blocks. Stay tuned ....



Piece,
Linda

Success is a journey - not a destination...