Leslie’s stunning Bricks quilt is a work of art in this room
as is Kimono and her namesake’s quilt below.
I like to see how Leslie’s inspiration develops…from these
to this fabulous spiderweb wip
I love looking at Leslie’s work as it is so refreshing and true to the spirit of her muse, Denise Schmidt while still being fresh and original. Leslie is blogless but you can find her on her flickr stream here.
I have had an interesting time since publishing my last post. I was savaged by one member of our group who then cut and ran but more astounding to me was the lack of actual response for or against the issue of fair attribution of inspiration of work by quilters and artisans. I had talked to some people on facebook who were very upset about it and others who thought a simple error had been made but still needed to be addressed. By the way it has been now….Stella was influenced by the actual floor of the cathedral and by the method of Colleen Wise.…so there was definitely an issue of attribution.
I was savaged on flickr for taking the award away while I investigated the matter…I think that is what is done in sport etc while investigations go on. I am not and have never said that I am anything but an encourager of quilters …so I am not really sure of the procedure…I just knew that I had to explain why I had removed the photo and the award…although on the surface it looks as if it did not matter as very few people have been prepared to comment on the issue apart from Joan and Ruth and the previous ones on Facebook.
That post had seventy views… and of those views
30 were from people reading the blog from the link on flickr
17 views were from quilterblogs updates
5 or so from the facebook discussion
The remaining were people rechecking the post and the person who savaged me accounted for several visits though she was not prepared to speak her mind here! What is interesting is that there are several people whom I know had considered stopping blogging recently due to supposed stealing of their ideas….and not a peep to be heard from anybody who had read their posts…..one of the posts had 95 comments!
So I do thank dear Joan who is always level headed and Ruth who is as honest as they come and admits when she is torn about something.
I have been rethinking my habits online. I do spend a lot of time on flickr looking for wonderful quilts which will inspire the more experienced quilters and obviously as with many others a lot of time is spent in the encouragement of both new quilters and quilters with works in progress. I also have spent a fair bit of time on the facebook fanpage....which helps show the selection of QOTW and POTW photos. So I guess what I am saying is I am not sure how much time I am now willing to spend on the flickr side of things…it does not really seem worth the effort when issues like this arise. I think the facebook page is worth developing as it opens quilting up to people who are not on flickr and I know there are a lot of people on facebook who do not blog …although I think that many of them are involved with quilt guilds etc.
I have met some wonderful people through flickr …Ruth, Betty, Sally and Joan…who started a blog after meeting us crazed bloggers…and she now has more readers than moi! Trish is another, and several older ladies whose health is compromised and can no longer quilt but enjoy the companionship of fellow quilters. What I am finding though is that Facebook offers more immediate feedback and actually I have met more people who are willing to express themselves honestly through facebook in six months than I have in over two years of blogging and involvement in flickr.
I have decided to spend some of the time away from flickr to keep more up to date with blogging through quilterblogs.com and while I was there today I found [on the blogroll of another blogger] the blog of Michelle Hill whom I have long adored…she is an expert in the field of quilting using William Morris as inspiration…and I found her link to flickr.…oh my…this has all her fabulous published quilts. I cannot recommend this highly enough….Australian art quilting at its finest! I will be sending links to her from facebook soon so check it out there ….you will be mesmerised! She has a book available on Amazon.com which I have put on my wishlist!
Okay after a wonderful evening last night at Nida watching my friend’s grand daughter and the rest of the dance troupe I feel inspired to finish sewing one of my quilts. There was the most fabulous tribute to Michael Jackson last night….although it was a tad loud! The costumes were fabulous though…if I had my time over I would definitely have gone into costume design.
I removed our latest QOTW as it came to my attention that the quilt appeared to be quite like….well almost the same…with slightly different colours … as Kaffe Fassett’s Venetian Tiles quilt in his book Patchwork from 1997. The quilt is definitely deserving in workmanship and sheer talent of the award…choosing colours without a kit for Kaffe’s quilts is a really difficult task and one which is deserving of recognition but unfortunately this quilt had only this in the information about it:
“One of my quilts designed after the floor of the St Marco Cathedrale in Venice/Italy”
I have since asked the quilter to add it to the Kaffe Fassett Love group here and she did so …so am thinking this was probably an innocent mistake…however we must be vigilant in defending the work of our designers…too many are losing valuable money through the people who knowingly infringe their copyright. We all know designers/artists who have to work at a different job to put food on the table…..every time someone makes something from a photo they have seen here without acknowledging the inspiration is money out of the pocket of that designer and also a betrayal of the community we have here.
By all means be inspired by artisans….they love that but tell everyone where that inspiration came from. Artisans love to see what people are making from their patterns…I often let them know if I see something in the group…and they are nearly always excited!
This is Veryty’s version…fully attributed
I do see that the quilt was entitled Venetian Tiles…so I believe the fault is also mostly mine here…I knew there was something about this quilt which caused me to wonder about making it QOTW….indeed I did not make Ann Stewart’s gorgeous quilt QOTW because she so strongly defended the honour of the designer Nancy Crowe that it seemed that the quilt Venetian tiles seemed more original by comparison…though Ann’s was exquisitely crafted. I am so pleased to have the fan page on Facebook which enabled me to clearly see where the inspiration came from for Venetian Tiles. I also see that the quilter on other photos clearly said “my design”…..but it is as important to acknowledge who actually did design the one’s we didn’t!
So I would like to apologise ….for giving out an an award then taking it way and also apologise to the designers in our groups….I will try to be more vigilant…and I am introducing probably the most important group rule…attribution of inspiration or design….this also includes whether it is a kit. Thankyou Sarah for your input and Joy and Hildegard on Friends of FPAQ
UPDATE …Stella has been in touch and she actually based the quilt on the actual floor…which was what I took her to mean when I saw the quilt. I love the use of purples and think it is a wonderful interpretation of a real life artwork. I just wish I could see it for myself…the floor…and the quilt! I have reinstated her award as I feel it is a remarkable quilt from someone with very real talent in the arts field…the shades are sublime in the quilt. I am grateful that Stella took this well and is updating her photo description with information about her quilt ‘s journey to completion.
Having a break from my research for a future blog post which has proven both time consuming and informative.
My copy of Kaffe Fassett’s Quilt Romance came from Amazon.com today. Kathy devoted a blog post to the book here. ….her post has photos of the projects too! I adore this book because it is photographed in Portmerion....where my favourite china originated. It is a village in Wales where quaint cottages and buildings are painted in the most glorious colours.
I popped out for a while to get fresh veggies for dinner and on the way popped into Vinnies where I found the cute sewing basket. While it is a tad small for my sewing needs its perfect for my evening beading. It will be perfect for my pliers and findings and wire etc. I also found the as new skirt which was exquisitely hand tailored…you know with the seams sewn with a top stitch not a zig zag. Pity to cut it up…but don’t worry I won’t lose any sleep over it…it will be perfect for my LibertyV Quilt. I need masses of blues for that and also it will be good for the mosaic one below….still looking out for Liberty fabrics for that one!
Okay off to watch television for a while..then more research!
This week’s POTW [photo of the week] on FPAQ on flickr is by rOssie. The way Rossie has photographed this quilt is sublime…the shades of colour in the background…in the branch…echo the subltey of the colours in the quilt.
This quilt really has to be seen large to appreciate the detail. The quilting is exquisite, as is the use of the itajime resists which Rossie sells in her etsy shop. Rossie learned about this process from Malka of a stitch in dye.
Rossie actually has this quilt for sale here in her etsy shop rossie.etsy.com where she explains a little more about the dye process.
She also started the flickr group Fresh Modern Quilts where many hours of inspiration is to be found.
