As I'm still fairly new at quilting and learning new terms every day, I haven't really thought about this topic until now. But I need help to know when is a quilt your own design.
I made this quilt, following a 'single block' tutorial I found on the internet (click here for the tutorial), I did not piece it from any pattern or example except for the block, so is it safe to say its my design?
Most of the competitions I have seen, one of the requirements is that you design the quilt yourself. So before I can really think about doing something like that, I need this question answered.
Happy quilting.
5 comments:
Marelize I think you can safely say that this quilt is your own layout. Competitions just don't want us to make a quilt from a pattern and then claim that we designed it. When you like a block, play with colors and placement unless the block itself had copyright on it, it is your own design.
It is lovely! I hope you find out about the design question. I am not a quilter, but I so appreciate the work and creativity it takes to make one.
Thanks for your reply Hettie, just a thought though, and I'm certain it will sound very nasty, but WHY copyright a quilt block? Who will want to make it? I can understand if you want it known that you 'designed' it, but once you copyright something no one has the 'freedom' to use it?
I think it's more to protect your from having some company start mass producing copies of it in China and selling cheap quilts of your design at Target. For example, one quilter had her quilt design printed on hotel carpet without her knowledge or permission. I think it's more that than preventing other quilters from using it in their quilts.
Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns Compiled by Barbara Brackman is a great resource for the history of quilt blocks. I think that the block you used in your quilt is #1211 Balkan Puzzle (page 169) and was published in Capper's Weekly in 1927. I think that the process in the tutorial might be unique to Sew Happy Geek, and that you might not be able to use her words or process in your pattern. Perhaps you should contact Sew Happy Geek and see what her response is. I'm not an attorney and this is just my humble opinion.
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