For the debut of the Meow Meow cat fabric collection that I designed for Quilting Treasures, I also designed a table runner and a quilt for their booth at the International Quilt Market trade show.  The table runner is shown in the photo with a cat pet carrier.  

The Meow Meow quilt was displayed on the wall in the Quilting Treasures booth.    

Both the Quilt and Table Runner patterns are available on the Quilting Treasures website for downloading.  While looking at these patterns, note the other patterns available.  I designed some of these as well - the Sophia quilt pattern and the Flintstones Nap Mat as well as the art and instructions for the Blanc et Noir quilt by Marie Osmond.  In addition, there is a free quilt pattern for the Sweetheart Ballerina fabric collection that I designed. 

Please enjoy using these free patterns - there are so many great patterns available for you to choose from.

As I walk the International Quilt Market, I am always in heaven seeing all the beautiful colors of fabrics and quilts displayed throughout the whole show.  Another thing that I really enjoy about the show is catching up with friends, which I did last month at the Spring Quilt Market in Portland.

I think all of my friends are interesting and unique.  I remembered to take out the camera a few times, but not often enough, to capture some of these moments.

Julie Stephani is sitting in the center and Carol Zentgraf is sitting on the right side.    Julie is the editor of Today’s Creative Home Arts magazine.  Carol is a very talented designer specializing in sewing projects.  Its always a delight to be with these two as our conversations are always filled with many, many laughs.   

I have to admit that I don’t know the 4th person behind us. She surreptitiously joined our photo session. We were in the Home Arts booth and didn’t realize until later that we were posed in front of a photo in the booth background - she fit in just like she belonged! Also note my tote bag - made with my new Meow Meow cat fabric from Quilting Treasures.

 I’m afraid that I interrupted Gina Halladay’s lunch in the booth of her and Stephanie Goudzwaard’s pattern company, Threaded Pear (introducing several new patterns).  Gina is such a cut-up, plus she looked simply fabulous.  I just loved the booth sign using red long johns - what a great idea and easy to spot!  Gina is also a blogger extraordinaire with her hit blog, Quilters’ Buzz.

Another friend, Desiree Overtviet, travels a great distance to attend Quilt Market.  She is from Holland where she owns a very successful online fabric and quilt shop, Desiree’s Lappeteknikk.  Desiree is fun as well as very interesting.  I enjoy hearing about her life in Holland, which she tells with a humorous slant.  And Desiree is definitely a shoe lover, traveling with many pairs of gorgeous and stylish shoes including some Jimmy Choo’s.

Proof reading this post reminds me of two quotes.  “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people” (Victor Borge).  Plus “A good snapshot stops a moment from running away”. (Eduora Welty).  Note to self - remember to pull the camera out more often!

Bernina of America sponsored a Bernina Fashion Show at the Spring Internatonal Quilt Market.  I took photographs of 3 of the gorgeous entries, although they were all spectacular.

This entry. titled The Many, Many Tears I’ve Shed, was created by Virgie Fisher of Yukon, OK.

Audrey Durnan of Claremont, CA, created the blue Silk Road Caravanserai which has a coordinating  hooded cloak.

This fashion, The Warrior Goddess…Guardian of Lost Treasure, was created by Janet Brooks of Rio Rancho, NM.

It was a busy show, so unfortunately, I did not get back to take additional pictures of the gorgeous fashions. 

Please check back for more from Quilt Market.  And one more piece of eye candy, a close up (although a little out of focus) of one of the beautiful rhododendron blooms that were outside the convention center.

International Quilt Market is always a beautiful trade show, full of eye candy with all the beautiful colors of quilts and fabrics.  It was an exciting event for me as Meow, Meow, my new cat fabric collection debuted with Quilting Treasures. 

I also created several projects for Quilting Treasures’ booth using Meow Meow.  I’m in the center with Donna (left) and Jodi (right) from Quilting Treasures.  The two quilted projects shown in front are a Meow Meow Cat Carrier (with a fluffy white “stuffed” cat), and a Meow Meow Table Runner.  Free instructions for making the table runner as well as a quilt will be on the Quilting Treasures website for downloading soon.  I will post a link when it it up.

Two other quilted projects that I designed with Meow Meow cat fabrics are a Chair Back Cover and a Tote Bag. 

Quilt Market was held in Portland, OR in mid-May, during an unexpected heatwave with temperatures in the 90’s.  Since I live in the South with high temperatures, I was looking forward to the cooler days in Portland.  Oh well, at least it didn’t rain.

Portland was really beautiful with all the flowers blooming.  Even though Portland is known for roses, I think it should be noted for rhododendrons as they were huge and blooming everywhere.  They were gorgeous and gave additional eye candy for Quilt Market.

After Quilt Market as I took a vacation to Seattle and an Alaskan cruise.  Please check back for lots more from Quilt Market as well as some photos of unbelievable scenic views from Alaska and Mt Ranier.

I’ve worked up a couple of projects with my new “Meow Meow” cat fabric that I designed for for Quilting Treasures. I will carry these with me to Quilt Market to use during the show to show how the fabrics work up in sewing and quilting projects. 

The badge holder and tote bag will also be quite useful as well to keep up with my ”stuff” during the show. 

I will be in Quiiting Treasures’ booth Saturday afternoon 2-4 pm to meet attendees.  There will also be other quilt and sewing models in their booth featuring “Meow Meow”.  So for those of you attending Quilt Market (open to the trade only), please stop in.  I would love to meet you.

I just received the latest issue of Today’s Creative Home Arts magazine.  I have 4 designs created with the Sweetheart Ballerina fabrics in this issue. 

The sewing and quilt projects are designed for a child’s room with dimensional dragonflies.  The projects include a quilt, window valance, lamp shade and fabric framed bulletin board.  The Fabric Framed Bulletin Board is on Today’s Creative Home Arts website so that you can follow the easy instructions to create this project. This magazine is available by subscription only and is not on the newstand.  It was fun to design these projects and I hope some of you enjoy sewing them as well.

I have received some advance pieces of my new Meow Meow fabric collection.  They are piled here on my cutting table so that I can start sewing with them.

I am so excited about  this fabric collection - cats, cats and more cats, all completely inspired by my Kitty Kat’s attitudes.  Meow, Meow will debut from Quilting Treasures at the International Quilt Market in a couple of weeks. The collection turned out just as I envisioned it when I first started designing it - I could not be more pleased!

I think you will be enchanted by designs and colors of these whimsical cats and find a favorite cat “tude”.

Check back as I will show more of these fabrics very soon and some of the projects I’m creating with them.

Joanne Fink, who is a strong advocate of the rights of creative people, wrote the following email this morning.  Please read it and my post from last night and write, fax, call and/or email your senators and representatives.  And pass this information along.

Hi Everyone,  Just thought I’d chime in on the Orphan Works situation. As you probably know, last Friday both the Senate and House introduced variations of the same bill: The Shawn Bentley Orphan Acts of 2008 (S. 2913) and The Orphan Works Act of 2008 (H.R. 5889). If these bills pass, they will have devastating consequences for visual artists.

Having been involved in strategy sessions for the last few days with Brad Holland (Illustrator’s Partnership) and others, let me outline what you can do that would be helpful.

1. Write a letter to your congressional House leader and Senators stating your opposition to the bills. Send the letter both by e-mail and fax.

2.   Help raise awareness about the potential consequences of this legislation, and ask everyone you know to write and send letters.

A number of groups which oppose this legislation are collaborating on creating a website which will enable you to e-mail your congressional leaders with the push of button. It will also contain sample letters. I will post the link as soon as the site is live.

The main reasons to object to this legislation are listed below. In case any of you want to start work on your letters before the sample letters are published, I’ve also included additional information to help you explain and clarify these objections.

1. It changes the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act (enacted in 1978), and makes it virtually impossible for artists to protect their work. It basically allows anyone to use a design without the copyright holder’s permission.

Under current law, you receive basic copyright protection even if you don’t register your work. Under Orphan Works law your work could be declared an orphan even if you have registered it. Congress, in enacting the Copyright Act of 1976, provided that copyright exists in the creation of any work that is copyrightable subject matter, regardless of whether or not the owner has performed any legal formalities, such as registration, or copyright notices, or taken any steps to protect or defend the copyright. Since 1978 (when it was enacted) many creators have relied upon the Copyright Act of 1976, and employed business practices based upon the protections it offered. The proposed Orphan Works Act of 2008 would have the effect of depriving certain creators of the ability to enforce their copyrights because they did not take steps that the Copyright Act of 1976 did not require them to take. In essence, it will give infringers the legal means to use a design without the copyright holder’s permission.

2.   It requires artists to attempt to protect their work by registering it with a digital data base system (presumably for a fee, in addition to the copyright filing fee)—when no such system exists!

The proposed legislation is predicated on the establishment of private, profit making registries that would establish databases of digital versions of artworks and provide a place for infringers to try to locate the artist, BUT it will be enacted whether or not these data bases ever come into existence.This will relieve the infringer of liability if he simply attempts a search that cannot possibly be performed successfully.

In addition, the legislation places no limit on the number of these registries or the prices they would charge. The burden of paying for digitization and depositing the digitized copy with the private registry would presumably fall entirely on the artist, and even if an image is contained in the registry, as long as the infringer “looks” without finding it, the infringement is allowed. There is no liability imposed for the failure of a database to find an image registered in that database when it is searched, and no requirement that all available databases be searched, thus potentially requiring multiple registrations (and multiple registration fees). Also there are no safeguards to prevent any person or company from fraudulently registering work they do not own.

3. It eliminates statutory damages wherever an infringer can successfully claim an orphan works defense, thus eliminating the only tool the law provides to prevent deliberate infringement.

Current law almost certainly deters rampant infringement because the present remedies – damages of up to $150,000 per infringing article– make infringement risky. By “limiting remedies,” the Orphan Works amendment will effectively create a no-fault license to infringe.

4.  It allows for an infringer to create—and copyright—a derivative work from the original design.

Under current law, the right to create a derivative work is one of an artist’s exclusive rights. Section103(a) says a user can’t copyright a derivative image that he’s infringed. “Protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.” Under the proposed new bills, since the entirety of an infringed work can be included in a derivative use, then the copyright of the derivative will amount to a copyright of the original. This would be a de factocapture of new exclusive rights by the infringer. In other words, these bills allow infringers to make and copyright derivatives—even if the copyright holder to the original work objects.

If this legislation passes it would mean a return to pre-1976 U.S. Copyright Act when many artists’ works fell into the public domain because they could not afford to comply with the formalities of registration as a condition of copyright protection. This violates the trust under which American artists have worked for the last 30 years, and nullifies our U.S. Copyright registrations. Further, it is against the Berne Convention, and invites retaliation from around the world because international artists’ works are just as vulnerable to infringement under the U.S. Orphan Works Act.

Now let me recap the current situation:

The Senate has only given a few days for comments on the bill to be made; they are due Wednesday, April 30^th. The House has not specified a time-frame, and may give as little as 24 hours notice before closing the window for comments. There are several loosely allied groups which are opposing the legislation. These include The Illustrator’s Partnership (illustrators), The Artists’ Rights Society (fine artists), The Advertising Photographers of America (photographers), the Artists Foundation (fine artists), the Textile coalition (4 textile groups) and the Industry Coalition (whose members include the Craft and Hobby Association and George Little Management). During an OW strategy session Friday afternoon, Corrine Kevorkian, counsel for textile giant F. Shumacher, shared that the Textile coalition intends to recommend to the Senate that they adopt the House version. If this happens, the Textile industry will be spared the draconian impact of the Orphan Works Act because the House version exempts useful articles (see #1 below). She also intends to emphasize that the legislation shouldn’t take effect until the electronic data bases actually exist.

Although the bills are similar, there are some important differences to note. Both are devastating to all visual artists, but the House bill is somewhat less objectionable. Here are the three main differences:

1. The House bill includes an exception for useful articles, which (as far as I can determine) means that products (such as textiles and mugs) which are functional whether or not design has been applied to them, will not be impacted by this legislation.

2. The House bill also requires that manufacturers file their intention to use an image before they can use it –although it does not (a) specify a time period or method for doing so, (b) does not require an image to be included, only a verbal description (the Mona Lisa, for example could be described as “a dark-haired woman with an unusual expression” which would supposedly allow Leonardo to identify his work), and (c) does not require the filings to be readily searchable to allow an artist to monitor unauthorized uses of his/her work.

3. The House bill allows for a longer (possible) time period before implementation: January 1, 2013 vs. the Senate bill which uses the date of January 1, 2011. Unfortunately both bills are scheduled to take effect on the earlier of: “the date on which the Copyright Office certifies under section 3 at least 2 separate and independent searchable, comprehensive, electronic databases, that allow for searches of copyrighted works that are pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, and are available to the public through the Internet; or the January 1^st, 2011 or 2013 listed by the respective bills. This means that if there is no visually searchable database operable before the date(s) listed, the legislation goes into effect anyway!

If you would like additional information on the potential impact of this legislation, you can learn more by

a.    Reviewing the submission to the House by the Illustrator’s Partnership http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00261

b.   Listening to Brad Holland’s informative webcast: http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html.

This is a very serious situation, and will require a concerted effort on all of our parts to stop it. I’m glad to see so much posting going on… and I believe that together we CAN make a difference. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have more information.

This may be forwarded in its entirety to any interested parties.

 Best wishes,

Joanne

I have been wanting to write about this absolutely, unbelievablely fabulous quilt, based on a translation of an old German Fairy Tale, and the interesting woman who designed and made the quilt - but my blog has not been working.  Someone hacked into it and it took me days to get it fixed.

But onto the story of this quilt and the woman who created it - Sieglinde Schoen Smith.  I had attended the International Quilt Market trade show in October 2006.  After the show, I was sitting in the lobby of my hotel waiting on the airport shuttle bus and had dozed off.  I was awakened by a woman, Sieglinde, who had started taking to me.  She had just arrived for the International Quilt Festival, this huge consumer show that follows Quilt Market.  She was so excited - she had entered a quilt and hoped that she would win a prize.  Sieglinde showed me a picture of her quilt, and my mouth dropped open - it was the most fantastic quilt.  I thought to myself that if she didn’t win, the judges were blind.

Sieglinde grew up in Germany during the war and had the children’s book Mother Earth and her Children read to her.  She had remained fascinated by this book and created her quilt based on this story. The quilt is really “mind boggling”, a work of art that is so detailed with both the quilting and embroidery.

As we sat and talked, Sieglinde told me of her childhood and family and the horrors of growing up during the war.  She was completely fascinating and had me thoroughly captivated.  Unfortunately, the shuttle bus came too soon and ended our conversation.  I could have sat hours listening to her.

Although I had her card, I was busy working and did not follow up with her, but often wondered how her quilt placed at the show.  

The next spring, I attended the Spring Quilt Market.  As I walked the show, I saw a quilt hanging in a prominant spot and immediately recognized it.  The booth was a publisher, Breckling Press.  I asked about the quilt and learned that it had been awarded “Best in Show”.  I also learned that the quilt was being used  to illustrate Mother Earth and Her Children in a new children’s book. 

When the Fall Quilt Market arrived in October 2007, Seiglinde was in Breckling Press’ booth, busily autographing copies of the book. She has another book coming soon, Mother Earth’s ABC,  using the alphabet on the quilt. Congratulations to Sieglinde, who is living a true fairy tale, and a huge thanks for sharing her talent!

I’ve been tagged by my friend Sue Zipkin.  She is an artist with a wonderful delightful style of art and color.  Her art appears on many products.  I actually bought several items with her images on them long before I met her.  Read about her tag facts on her blog.

Tagging is a different and fun way to read little know things about your favorite bloggers.  The tag rules are:

1. Link to the tagger.

2. Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 people, post their names and links to their blogs on your blog.

4. Tell the 7 people you tagged by posting “Tag you’re it” on their blogs in their comments box and explain the rules to them. Nobody is obligated! Just have fun.

My random facts:

1. I was not given a middle name when I was born, just the initial of my father’s given name. It was the same with my brothers. My father was Greek and we were told it was a Greek tradition. Later, I realized that my father had a middle name.

2. My secret dream is to write a novel. It will be a thriller - bodies and twists and turns, just no blood.

3. I’m a travel junkie. I try to learn as much history about the places I visit. And I love see as much as I can and will take off exploring, following streets on a whelm (as long as the area is safe).

4. I brought a little black kitten home 3 years ago against the wishes of my husband. The kitten was rescued by my sister-in-law and won my heart immediately. We’ve always had dogs and Danny didn’t like cats. Now, he just loves and adores our Kitty Kat as much as I do and is a converted cat lover. 

5. I collect quotes. Since I’ve had Kitty Kat, my favorite quote has become ”You can’t outstubborn a cat” (Robert A. Heinlein).

6. I love nature, especially flowers and trees. Although its hazardous, while driving I look at trees and their shapes as well as watch for wildflowers.

7. I love color and buy things simply because of the color (usually small ticket items).  I love office products in exciting colors. I also buy fabric because of the gorgeous colors and as a result, I have a really huge stash of fabrics.

The friends that I am tagging are Brenda Pinnick, Anna Maria Horner, Gina Halladay (Quilters Buzz), Claudine Hellmuth, Audrey Jeanne Roberts, and Joan Elliott. You can check on their links at the right in my blogroll to read their fabulous blogs and their “tag” facts.

And here are a couple of pictures of Kitty Kat - he likes flowers as much as I do. Its amazing how a ball of fluff can warm your heart, whether it is a cat, dog or any other animal.