A Rose by Any Other Name

I've been thinking about quilt designs and copyrights. 

There is a persistent myth among quilters and other crafters that if you like a design, you can change it ten percent and then call it your own, publishing, exhibiting or selling finished work, etc.  In reality, this is theft, and actionable under copyright laws.  We like to say "It is only ninety percent theft."

In the literary world, copying someone else’s work and putting your name on it is called plagiarism, even if you change it a little.  When a writer or any artist makes his own work and signs another’s name, we call it forgery.  In the case of translations, the currently accepted and legal way to market a literary work in translation includes a prominent acknowledgment that the work is indeed a translation and the translator’s name not only goes on the cover and title page, some contemporary translators receive royalties from sales in addition to a translation fee.  A translation marketed without the translator’s name is a forgery, as it is not the work of the original author.  If a translated play is advertised, performed, or published without a prominent statement that it is a translation, that too is a forgery, as the buying or viewing public is not informed that the purchase, whether a ticket to a play or a script, actually is not entirely the work of the original artist.   

It seems unlikely that anyone else will attempt to market a design with Jinny Beyer's name on it.  It would be far more reasonable to say "inspired by Jinny Beyer."  As quilt designers, we expect that people will make quilts from our designs, selecting different fabrics, and enlarging or reducing the size. (My sister calls this smallinating and biggifying.)  However, we don't expect quilters to publish our patterns as their own, or to photocopy patterns except for their own use.

This issue is sometimes confused by the fact that individual traditional quilt blocks cannot be copyrighted.  What we can do is insist that the instructions, photographs and drawings, and presentation is unique and therefore cannot legally be reproduced or sold by another designer or quilter.  So, make my quilt, but acknowledge that the design is mine.  If you want to sell a quilt made from my pattern, please make sure the label and sale materials clearly state that it is a Victoria Rose design.  If you want to teach a class using one of my designs, you cannot legally photocopy the pattern instructions.  Legally, you must purchase a pattern for each member of the class.  You will find that quilters in general are perfectly willing to pay for their patterns. 

So, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," but this statement will forever belong to Juliet in WIlliam Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, however many times I type it.

And yes, I am working on a Wild Rose quilt.

Sneak Peak of Row X Row

The 2016 Row X Row Experience theme is "Home, Sweet Home."

  Here's a peak at part of the 9" x  36" Row for the

Send-It-Home Yarn and Quilt Shop.

The complete strip  has more "Home on the Yellowstone" motifs.

The finished strip has been sewn and we're chosing fabrics for kits.  If you are new to the Row X Row Experience check out the website:  www.rowbyrowexperience.com.  It's a great traveling quilt adventure.  Free patterns will be available in the shop from June 21 to September 6, 2016.

Spring Fever

This is the view just outside my back door, which faces south.

The sun is shining and the plum trees are in full bloom.  I've just weeded my perennial container garden, and I have some quilts to share.  For many quilters, Quilt Season is Fall and Winter, but for me, the pleasure of designing new quilts and patterns peaks when the summer quilts for the Send-It-Home Yarn and Quilts Shop in West Yellowstone, Montana, are ready to have their portraits taken and the patterns printed. 

This is one of the quilts I've designed using McKenna Ryan fabrics from Kauffman.  First, the fabrics:

There are two prints with moose, the light at the back and the darker at the front in the photo. 

This was my first design, but it was too much like the Yes Deer quilt we did last year. 

The final design mixes two different 12" blocks.  The light, medium and dark greys in the corner blocks and corner 4-patch blocks are all cut from one length of fabric with ombre shading from very light to almost black. 

Here's the quilted but not bound finished quilt,  Moose in the Mist.  The binding will be the same dark blue-green as the 1/2 inch inner border.  Finished size is 45 inches. 

The patterns and kits for this quilt will be available this summer, along with a Bear quilt made from the green colorway of these fabrics.  It looks pretty good thrown over the back of my rocking chair, but would be striking as a table cover, on a wall, or, my personal favorite, waiting on a bed for a sleepy baby. 

And this is the Pig of Spring, in the grape hyacinths under the apricot tree under my kitchen window.  Yes, I bought it for my sister who involuntarily collects pigs, but it will sit in the garden until she comes to fetch it.  Piggy is about 8 inches tall with wings.

Quilt Bucket list grows

February 2016  New Year's Resolution:  Actually write about all the things I think about. 

2016 Quilts to Make list is long and getting longer.  Join me for the adventure!

Grand Teton National Park "Cathedral Group"

This is a photograph that represents my first home.  Among my adventures-in-the-wings, I am designing the 2016 Row X Row quilt row for the Send-It-Home quilt and yarn shop in West Yellowstone, Montana.  The format is a little challenging:  9" x 36" but when the theme was announced it suggested lots of options.  "Home Sweet Home." 

I wonder how many quilt shops across the continent will have bird houses on their row.  At the moment I am thinking about "Home on the Range."  Wait and see!  I may drop hints occasionally.

Today my home town quilt group met, and my task was to teach a class on foundation piecing.  We wound up with too little time, and I think I need to post my instructions and the photos that go with them.  Look for that here later this week.

If you are a quilter who purchased a Victoria Rose Quilts pattern last summer which did not have all the template patterns, please contact us at victoriarosequilts@gmail.com.

G

Forest Star Baby Quilt  44" x 44"

This quilt is still in the cut and paste design stage.  The fabrics are Forest Frolics by Heidi Boyd for Red Rooster Fabrics. We will probably replace the bear block with one of deer, since the brown of the bears seems to overbalance the left corner.  There are six blocks on the panel along with the birds on boughs swags on the top and bottom border.  The Send-it-Home Quilt and Yarn Shop has the panel and the coordinating fabrics except the green and lavender. www.send-it-home.com

This will be the side border center panels, and most of the back of the quilt.

Tiny mushrooms for the star point hourglass blocks

And kit foxes for the hourglass blocks.

Bremen Critters and Summer landscapes

This quilt uses a great group of fabrics designed by Leanne Anderson for Henry Glass and Co. Just finished and available as a kit from Send-It-Home Quilt and Yarn Shop in West Yellowstone, Montana.  www.send-it-home.com

Official name?  Build Each Other Up.   Our private name?  Bremen Critters, in honor of "The Musicians of BremenTown."

We've done a lot for the shop this summer with what some call "Cheater cloth" and others "Convenience Cloth."  Sometimes the fabrics are too adorable, or just plain beautiful, to pass by.

The "pieced" blocks in the 3rd border of Build Each Other Up would be fun to actually piece, especially for those of us who adore 4" blocks.  There is enough piecing with the 5 borders of this quilt to allay the guilt for those who suspect they should applique the whole thing.

This photo is from my phone, on a Sunday afternoon jaunt to find out where the road goes.  Zen navigation, anyone?  Taken near Lander Wyoming.

Sunset looking northwest from Gramdmama Jere's house in Idaho.  

Current quilt projects are the Huckleberry Patch quilt in purple and blue batiks, and the dragon applique for my Winter Dreams quilt.  Pictures soon!

Can't See the Forest

ARGH!  After the embarrassment of discovering the Tree templates were left out of our Bears on the Porch Log Cabin pattern, the email addressed offered in the previous blog is impossible.  So, if you purchased the Bears on the Porch pattern in West Yellowstone this summer, and the Tree templates are missing, please email  victoriarosequilts@gmail.com  or call 1(435) 730-4976.  Mention the trees template and give your name and address and we'll send you the template pattern  immediately.

Bottom Fir Tree border 

Meanwhile, we're enjoying the beginning of Quilt Season.   Of course, the Opening Day of Quilt Season follows right on the heels of the Closing Day of Quilt Season.   Oh, wait.  Maybe some of you don't consider NCAA football season prime Quilt Season. Isn't that why instant replay was invented? I've got great seats, and never get rained or snowed out. Still following Boise State, and waiting for Utah/vs BYU and Army vs Navy, and Syracuse vs anybody.

Missing Forest

The missing trees

To our friends and fellow quilters;

Howdy.  If you bought a copy of our Bears on the Front Porch quilt pattern this summer in West Yellowstone,  please email us for a copy of the Tree block templates. We deeply regret our error in leaving the template pages out of the printed pattern.  We can email the file or send you a paper copy, at no charge to you, of course.


              victoriarosequilts@blogspot,com

Digital plan for Bears on the Porch quilt

     

Bright!

Midwinter Dream Quilt

When the snow gets deep and the skies are grey, I'm not the only one who dreams of summer.

Plan A for the Midwinter quilt

This quilt project started several years ago when my sister gave me a foot tall stack of batik fat quarters as a Christmas gift.  My world, and especially my appliqué, brightened up considerably.  As I've collected bright batiks, I've put some aside for this project. Now they've reached an acceptable level of curing-on-the-shelf, so in the dark ages of January I started piecing.

Originally we just wanted an easy to piece design that would showcase the intense colors of batiks.  I’d seen a Finnish quilt online with a gorgeous array of bright fabrics, but it was far more complex than I wanted to tackle in a big quilt, so this quilt is only somewhat inspired by that one, mostly in the borders. 

The blocks of the quilt center are a simple log-cabin style square.  The zig-zag border is cut from a pieced panel of stripes.                                                                                                                                                                 

blocks ready for piecing

                                        

                                                                             

First block begins

I just have to remember which way I'm rotating the blocks as I add pieces

a finished block, pressed and "squared up" but skewed on the greid in the background.

These are the strips which will become stripes for the border

And the striped panel cut into blocks.

and the border begins to take shape.

The plan is to finish this in time to have it quilted by midsummer.  Bright days ahead!

Bear Paw

Baby Bear Paw

The trip through the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks reminded me of the first bear quilt I did.  I think I'll make a new version with autumn leaf colors.  Nice to remember that scarlet and orange are "earthtones."

Autumn on the Road

Country Road in the Adirondacks

 

Timetable?  Schedule?  Not when there are mountain roads and pictures to take.  I may have to rethink the ratio of orange to green in my stash.



Trees, Bears, Fish, and Trees

My designated Driver and I set off from Utah to visit our grad students in New York last Thursday.   (Why do I need a designated driver?  It's tough to drive and quilt at the same time.  And there are a lot of new laws across the country, including New York state's new No Hand-Held Devices law....) (We support laws against distracted driving.  Some of the best highway signs on the interstate are in Ohio:  "It can wait. Next Text Stop, 5 miles.")

Anyhow, we found ourselves in a race.  Some of the sights we wanted to visit in New York and New Hampshire are National Park service sites.  We realized we needed to drive straight to New York instead of wandering through  Minnesota and Michigan on the way.  We were racing against Congress and their inability to pass a Continuing Resolution for funding. Funny. People usually get into a race for Congress, not a race against Congress.

We managed to get to the parks we didn't want to miss, and then spent a couple of days wandering  in Vermont and New York.  The fall colors are AWESOME (yes, I know I"m shouting, but there really aren't any quiet words for Autumn in the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains.

 I wandered into a terrific quilt shop in Inlet, New York, the Crazy Moose Quilt Shop  This isn't a huge shop, but it is the best collection of trees, bears, cabins, fish, and moose fabrics I've seen.  Sara the owner is welcoming and savvy, and even the other customers were fun.  I almost forgot poor Designated Driver, but there were chairs out front and they even have Wi-Fi for husbands of quilters.

And here I am, designer of a whole series of fish, bear, log  cabin and tree quilt patterns.

Still the  version of Bears on the Porch Log Cabin

Bears on the Porch Log Cabin 

Traditional blocks used: Log Cabin, Bear’s Paw, and Fir Tree.  

The quilt is 56 x 56, and the blocks are 8 x 8. 

I know this is only the equilt  version of the Bears on the Porch Log Cabin quilt.  The original is hanging in West Yellowstone in the Send-It-Home Shop.  When I finished the quilting, we hung it and started cutting kits to go with the pattern.

This is the quilt I will be teaching next week, on the 24th of August, in West Yellowstone, Montana. You can register on-line at  www.send-it-home.com.  We'll make Bear Paw and  Fir Tree blocks in the morning, then do strip piecing of the log cabin blocks in the afternoon.  The classroom at the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce building is a wonderful space with great light and plenty of places to plug in extension cords.  We're also celebrating Christmas in August, so there will be some surprises.

Here's the short version of why I needed to make this quilt:  

History:  When my parents were in graduate school, they worked for several summers in Grand Teton National Park.  For two summers, we lived at the Spaulding Bay fire lookout tower, in a small cabin at the foot of the tower, high on a moraine overlooking Jackson Lake.  For adults standing in the top of the tower, sweeping views of the high peaks of the Teton range dominated the view.  For a toddler, fascinating things were much closer. One morning, my mother watched me with my hands and nose pressed against the inside glass of the cabin window, looking out at a bear cub whose nose and paws were pressed against the outside of the glass, looking in. My earliest memories include bears, tall pines and firs, and living in a cabin in the woods (and huckleberries, but that’s a different quilt).

Traditional Bear Paw block

The Bears on the Porch Log Cabin quilt was originally pieced in Forest colors of brown, green, and tan.  Look for a great bear fabric for the border!  

My venerable Viking with somewhere near 250,000 miles on it quit abruptly one afternoon at the beginning of quilting the White Grass Sampler, while Bears on the Porch was waiting for commercial quilting. (I hasten to say that my first and second Vikings are still "on the road," and serving two of my sisters.  Mine has served me well, and I took it to the shop, and learned that maybe I should just give it a good old Norse funeral and pass on the bobbins and specialized feet like  prizes in the funeral games.)  

I quilted Bears on the Porch  on borrowed machines, including finishing with a new Viking with no special features that did a splendid job of even tension quilting.  Next week I'll get a photo of the real quilt and post it here.  I have this sneaking suspicion that posting an equilt, even if it is a great design, is definitely cheating, and putting said equilt on the pattern cover is definitely bad form.  After all, I want to know that someone has actually made a quilt from a set of instructions before I buy that pattern! 

I worry (something I am really good at) about not getting the numbers right in the measurements for purchasing fabric, or in the cutting charts for my patterns.  Please, if you have one of my patterns and find an error, write to me so I can fix it.

Cabin Fever

Well.  I've fixed the aforesaid problem, so if you'd like to see the other half of the pictures we've been missing this summer, scroll down to take a look at past posts.  I need to go out and turn off the water on the baby Fuji apple tree, but I'm hoping someone else is feeling a little like branching out and will look at my equilt cabin project.  At least be willing to be amused!  This isn't the Cabin Fever that hits in Alaska or Montana in February.  This is my summer cabin fever.

So, here's why I'm making log cabins in the  late evening: When I was a small child, my family lived in Grand Teton National Park in the summer.  I grew up expecting that when the school year was over in late May or June, we would pack up and go to the mountains.

Even when my parents were finished with graduate school and we settled in one place, there were still aunts and cousins to visit who lived in the hills and plenty of trips to the mountains and lakes.  A few years after we moved back to Idaho to stay, my family bought a small place with a tiny cabin and built The Big House next door.  The ground floor of the house is 1200 square feet of log construction; beginning with an old house a friend wanted moved. My brothers numbered and lettered all the logs and took it apart.  Reassembled on a new foundation and basement, and with a full upper story added of recycled lumber and windows, my mother's house is a Big log cabin.  When I stay there, the nights are always cool, and it seems we can hear the river.  (The Henry's Fork of the Snake, which is about a quarter mile away.) It really isn't the river, but only irrigation water falling over the check in the canal, but between the sound of rushing water and the wind in the trees, it seems a lot like Heaven.

So, here are today's Log Cabin Quilt designs.  The complex one is queen size.  The critter under the tree in the upper left corner is a deer.  The single block is a 16" pillow.  Guess which one will be made tomorrow.

Can't decide if this is Escher slept here or Big Bear Big Bed Sampler Quilt.

Cut off?

I just discovered the problem with pictures and text not being fully displayed.  Will figure it out and fix it!.

High Mountains

High Mountains Strip from White Grass Sampler

August.  Who would have believed that July would burn past so fast?  This image is from my White grass Sampler block of the month (well, strip) quilt which is almost quilted.  It will be grand to have it done, since my brain is full of other quilts I want to make.

Fishing for Compliments

 Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout

 Yes, there are a few pins in the picture, and I still need to do the gill slits, but I am so excited I wanted to share the work-in-progress now.  The wedding season is winding down, and the new babies are nearly three months old.  Must be time to quilt like crazy, between trips outside to move the water and weed the flower beds and tomato pots.

 2# 18" Fish, Over the Limit pillow, and RGA designs Catch Me If You Can quilt

Renae Allen's RGA Designs fish quilt and patterns along with my fish pillow and small wall quilt, all together with Village Dry Goods racks of batiks for the Wasatch Shop Hop.  The overall theme was games, and Village Dry Goods was assigned "Go Fish."

My fish quilts will be in the shop in Brigham City along with the patterns for all three for at least a few more weeks.

Catch Me If You Can (RGA designs)

A better view of Renae's quilt.  

Grampa Says I''m a Keeper

My first fish quilt, definitely the most fun I've ever had with fish.  

I've been looking over old posts and discovered several comments I never responded too.  If you're still out there, I'm back in the swim of things and would love to chat.  

Flax

Flax, dianthus, and Ohio field daisies

This doesn't do the flax flowers justice.  I'm trying to figure out a way to represent these flowers in applique. The long, strong, slender (but we knew that.  It's flax) stems droop slightly with the weight of the very light flowers.  I may have to settle for using the color but not the plant itself.  Otherwise I see a lot of stem stitch embroidery in my future. FYI, when pioneers of European descent came to my part of the West in the mid 19th century, there was wild flax growing in the meadows. Wild flax still grows on the hills and even along state highways.  The plants in my flower plot are domesticated; the smaller ones are seedlings.   

The flower applique project is part of a projected plants and animals quilt.  The sort of project which can spend years moseying around in the far reaches of my brain for months or even years.  Is there a web icon for "I'll keep you posted?"

"2 Pounds  18 Inches" 

The legend:  In 1915, AFW pulled a rainbow trout out of Huntington Lake in California.  He weighed and measured it, and laid it on a board and traced around it.  Later he took the board and hung it up in his cabin with a note on the back with the information.

This fish applique was created by tracing the fish outline from a raisin paper pattern taken from the original wooden fish, then back-basting and needle turn appliqueing.  We added the stream-bed mosaic of one inch squares and the random width stream bank panel.  The batting is wool, which gives great dimension to the quilting.  All of the piecing and quilting was done by hand, as was the binding.

You can see this quilt during the Utah Shop Hop in June.  It will be at Village Dry Goods www.villagedrygoods.com in Brigham City.  After Shop Hop, all of my fish quilts will be in West Yellowstone for the summer at the Send-It-Home shop.  We'll be doing drop in classes at the shop in June and sign-up in advance classes later in the summer.www.send-it-home.com

Pinecone Playhouse has moved to the Mack's Inn Dinner Theater in Island Park for Summer 2013.  The Heritage Quilt Workshop will continue, with locations and classes to be announced.

Spring Gardens

Peonies in my garden

After a long winter of chipping ice and shoveling snow, it is wonderful to have Spring in full bloom.  I'm back, and I have no excuses.  Here's a little of what I've been doing.

During the winter, I had the pleasure of making lots of  soft flannel blankets, knitted caps, and tiny zippered sleepers in expectation of our new grandson.  Fox arrived a bit late, but he and his mom are doing well and his big brother is as happy as a kid can be.

One of my more recent projects was piecing the center of another Christmas Quilt for one of my mother's grandchildren.  The tradition she started with giving each grandchild a quilt block for Christmas each year has resulted in 14 finished quilts made as the grandchildren married.  Here's the center of Elise's quilt for her June wedding:

Elise Christmas quilt center

The outer borders and quilting I passed off to my mom and sisters in Idaho.  The variations in the finished quilts never cease to amaze me.   The concept is simple, just one block a year per child.  When the project was started, no one knew just how many blocks would be needed over the years.  When the per year count went over thirty, Mom decided that nine blocks was enough for a good quilt and since then she's only make blocks for the younger grandchildren.   The blocks are 16 inches square and are in mostly Christmas greens and reds with some blue and gold accents.