This time, it’s in a Facebook group known as the Worldwide Quilting Group. The administrator, Sandy Stubbs, has been scraping tutorial and pattern content from other sites, stripping it of attribution or links to the original source, and posting it. MANY of our well known designers have had their content stolen, some even had pages of books copied.

The image below is a tutorial that was stolen from Jacquie Gering’s site:

STEALING IS WRONG. We all learned this as wee kiddos, and it’s still the law of the land. Yes, this IS stealing. I know a lot of people think it isn’t because, hey, it’s all free on the internet, right? But no. If you take something that ISN’T yours, it’s stealing, plain and simple. And there is no polite euphemism for thievery. If you stole a car you’d go to jail.

So I imagine that a rationalization could be that it’s not stealing if the content was free at its original source. But here’s the thing… we post free content to be traffic drivers to our sites. WE ARE IN BUSINESS. Being in business means we aim to make a living, to earn money from our talent and skill. It’s a well-known business idea to offer tutorial content for free to bring customers to our site and hopefully get a sale out of them – it’s the loss-leader concept of internet commerce, and it operates on the similar premise of the deeply discounted stuff at a big box store on any given weekend. I know that some people think that sullying the sweet face of crafting with bold business marketing is somehow unsavory, but for heaven’s sake! All who work in quilting are businesswomen and men. We are here to earn a living.

And while our living is in jeopardy every time someone copies a pattern, or steals content like this group above, the people who really lose out are our customers. When we find out our work is stolen we get closer to quitting in disgust, and it certainly makes us pull back on our generosity. When we quit, our customers lose the ability to find great patterns to make. We are the Geese that Lay the Golden Eggs, and when our eggs are stolen, we die an inch at a time. Eventually there will be no more eggs.

EVERY SINGLE ONE of our customers is responsible for protecting the rich content we make. 

Think hard about that.

The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, illustrated by Milo Winter in a 1919 edition of Aesop’s Fables

Just about every quilt made relies as much on the pattern as it does on the fabric. And I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard “I spent all that money on fabric, I’m not spending another $10 on a pattern too.” And all I can say to that is, “Would you buy all the trimmings for thanksgiving dinner, and then steal the turkey?” No, you wouldn’t. And if you did, you’d be arrested.

So again, please:

• Support us by paying for the things we make that inspire you.
• Don’t steal by copying. (How not to be an accidental content thief)
• Don’t let your friends copy things you’ve paid for.
• Help us by linking back and attributing the source of anything you share so we get an opportunity to market to new eyes.
• Tell us when you see our stuff being stolen.
• Don’t blame us, the victims, when we come after you with legal measures.**

**The above group blamed and attacked the content creators when they were challenged, and have since blocked anyone who brings up that this content is stolen. They have also hidden the group now. This is so very disappointing, and I hope that other members in the group continue to report their crimes outside the group. A classy group would have stayed public, apologized, deleted stolen content, and attributed/linked up free tutorials. 

And to those of you who DO pay for everything… blessings upon you and may your threads be never tangled! Thanks for hanging in with another post about stealing patterns. And yes… I’ll stop writing about theft when it stops happening.

The post Why Stealing Patterns is Like Killing the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

1. I can’t speak to what my friends and colleagues care about in their patterns writing endeavors, but I can tell you I have a mission statement for how I create mine. I don’t do this for fame and fortune (LOL!) I do it because I want people to have more fun making more stuff – I really consider pattern writing a SERVICE to both my industry and to our customers. MANY of my colleagues care just as much.

2. My reader asked “what the hell were the pattern testers doing?” My guess is they were trying their best. I have a core team* that reads and test-sews for me. Each of them have a specific area of skill that helps me – reading, drawings, flow, etc. Sadly though, ten people can look at a pattern and something still slips through. Whenever I’ve put a call out for new testers I never hear back from more than half the people who take the pattern draft. I will optimistically hope they had a “life happened” moment, and not presume they are just trying to get a free pattern out of me. And honestly, if they were, the joke’s on them as my first drafts can be pretty shaggy.

3A. My reader thought that testers were paid, which is seldom the case. I WISH I could pay my testers with cash; I send them patterns and occasionally other stuff, but it’s hardly equal to their work (I’m not given enough fabric to forward as compensation). Our industry is lucky to have a mostly kind fan base, and I’m beyond lucky that I have my team. They help because they want us/me to succeed. They think their effort is a worthy contribution for the betterment of the industry. That said, they are humans and therefore they goof up. As do I. I have a page where all errors are listed, and am sweatily relieved that most of my errors have been small, and not in the realm of the expensively large cut my reader was rightly upset about.

3B. Why can’t I pay them? Honestly, the profit margin at my end of a $12 pattern (that sells through a distributor to a shop) is in the neighborhood of $3.50. And sadly, it’s not enough for paying testers AND eating. Yes, I get all the profits from a PDF sold directly from my site, but it also takes about 100 hours to fully produce a pattern. And before you imagine my earnings are “bonus” in my family (like old-fashioned pin money) let me clarify for you that I have no husband, partner, other job, or trust fund. It’s just me.

3C. Why isn’t my income higher? The profits at the designer end just aren’t that high, so we rely on volume (and we have stores going out of business everywhere). While many of my customers respect what I do and happily pay for my design skills (and I adore you all for that), I’m sad to report that we still have a LOT of people who think that patterns should be free. These thieves copy our patterns far and wide to all their pals. A POX ON THEIR SEWING MACHINES.

4. My reader was upset that she didn’t get a reply when she wrote to a designer about an error. Again, all I can say is I write back as soon as I can, but within business hours – not at all hours of the night and weekends because really, this is quilting, not emergency medicine. I’m as responsive as I can be, and I care about fixing errors (see 1 above). And PLEASE check your junk/spam folder before presuming you didn’t get a response.

5A. My reader feels tempted to complain to her IG following to get the attention of the designer in question. To which I say, BE CAREFUL THERE. Yes, you get to say you’re not happy, but I think you should fear creating a social media pile-on of hate, because that’s what WILL happen. We have far too much hate in our world already, and the internet proves over and over again that people say the most horrible things from the anonymity of the keyboard. If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t type in on the internet. One way to handle this would be to become respected for writing thoughtful pattern reviews, giving equal weight to the things that worked out, not just the ones that don’t. Really, if you had a good time with a pattern, let the designer know (my most favorite emails!) and tell your friends with as much fervor as when you run into an error.

6. How do we ensure pattern quality? I wish I knew. We have a lot of new designers flooding into the industry, and while some of their ideas are brilliant, their skills at writing that brilliance down haven’t caught up yet. Some of them are willing to improve, others don’t seem to care – which mirrors every other industry on the planet. Yes, a global pattern review site would be lovely, but few people would be willing to pay to access it – and it would need to be paid for as it would be a huge undertaking to build and run. At the moment, word of mouth is what we have.

I hope fervently that my industry colleagues care as much as I do to make the best product possible for our customers, and I know many who do. When we all step up, and we can all rise together.

I, for one, think YOU’RE worth the effort.

* My core team are Monica, Ursula, the ‘Flakes, the SLO Creative Crew, and the Lucky 13 Ladies – thank you!

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A couple of years back, Heather Powers of HKPowerStudio interviewed me about my studio space. Back then, it was a slender room in a friend’s bigger studio. I recently moved, and dedicated my new, larger living room to be my studio. When I told Heather about it, she asked me to give her an update about the new space.

She split the information into two posts that you can read here and here (and the original interview is here). She asks a lot of great questions… not just how I do things, but the philosophy behind my choices too!

I’ve had studios both in my house and outside, and I find they both have their benefits. I really like being able to look at something on the design wall while my first cuppa of the day is brewing, so having it in my home is a great solution for me. It can also mean that it’s hard to stop working though, and sometimes if I can see my messy kitchen from the sewing table I’ll get tempted to go clean up!

The studio I have now is probably my largest, and I’m loving having a huge design wall, and the ability to have a half dozen friends over to sew on the weekends. I’ll be teaching small classes from here soon (local Portland OR peeps, watch this space for a special signup to be on that list).

I’ve also written some posts about how I store things inside my studio (lots of ideas for small spaces):

Studio Process

Storage ideas – Part 1

Storage ideas – Part 2

And twice I’ve participated in the Spring Clean Your Studio blog hop hosted by Cheryl Sleboda of Muppin.com for the last couple of years – I hope she does it again this year as the people who participate always have some great tips for tidying up!

My 2015 Spring Cleaning

My 2016 Spring Cleaning

The post Inside My Studio appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

Friends, sewists, quiltmakers, lend me your ears!

The last few weeks of political upheaval in the United States has definitely shortened a lot of fuses, and sadly, it’s bleeding out in how we’re treating our fellow people.

My colleagues and I in the quilting industry have seen a notable uptick in the hostility of emails coming our way, and I want to appeal to everyone to just take a moment, and BREATHE.

Take a big, deep, breath, and a nice, slow exhale. *

And another.

And one more for luck… BREATHE.

There we go.

I’d like to tell you a wee bedtime story about the life of a small business owner in the quilt world. We are entrepreneurs and solo-preneurs, which means we get to choose which 18 hours of the day we’re going to work. For the most part, we wear all the hats, or at least all except the ones we can afford to hire out, and in quilting, the profits at our end of the food chain are modest enough that hiring out hats is a financial challenge. To say we are stretched thin is a king-sized (with hand-appliqued scalloped borders) understatement.

So when we get an email demanding that we do something RIGHT NOW OR ELSE, it’s hard to take. And considering we’re talking SEWING here, not a hold-up or a hostage situation, perhaps it’s a bit over the top.

First of all, please don’t start at DEFCON 3. It doesn’t leave us much room to solve the issue. You are welcome to be upset about something, and certainly welcome to let us know you want a different outcome from the one you’re getting, but starting at a heightened level of escalation, and then threatening me, is not likely to endear me to your cause. My most recent example of this was someone who wrote to tell me they didn’t like the roll-over newsletter sign-up thingy on my site. I appreciate that she wrote, and as it happened, it’s not working correctly so I have batted it over to my website guru (at $75 an hour) to sort out.

But at the end of the email, whose subject line was “Shame”, the writer closed with “Very annoying. I won’t buy any more of your patterns.”

Well.

I’d clutch my pearls if I actually owned any. No doubt this Lady of Perpetual Discontent righteously believes herself to be a genteel woman, sending me some shame.

Bless her heart.

This is not the first communication I’ve had in the last few weeks that resembles the short, barking tweet style of the current commander-in-chief, and I can’t say I think it’s a pretty thing for us to be modeling. Quilting is primarily built on the shoulders of kind women, helping other kind women to do kind things with needle and thread. I believe we are handily capable of rising above barking tweets at each other.

I think we might be forgetting that there’s a living, breathing human on the other end, who is actually doing her level best to do a good job. Emphasis on HUMAN. Which means we goof stuff up sometimes, and that stuff breaks sometimes, and that life gets terribly in the way sometimes. It means that it might take an email from you to let us know this thingy was broken because we don’t spend hours of our day looking for wiggles in our websites. The chances are we leave a periodic cookie offering to the internet angels, and the rest of the time cross our fingers fervently that it doesn’t all go haywire at a desperately inopportune moment. And even then, that doesn’t always work – I’m writing this to you from a coffee shop, slogging through my 8th day without internet service in my studio, and I bake a helluva lot of shortbread for people.

I do care that this thingy isn’t working properly, and I do care that my customer let me know she was having a tough time of it. But really… shame and a threat?

May I point out that we’re offering PATTERNS and FABRICS, not cures for cancer (if only a quilt could!) and that all this anxiety-laden urgency is just not useful. Truly, operating at that level is going to rust your insides, blow up your heart, and give you unattractive frown lines. Take it from the heart attack survivor here that it’s just not worth it. It gets up the hackles of the people you need on your side, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who is far from her best when put on the defensive.

So please… BREATHE for a moment before you hit that keyboard. Perhaps even brew a cuppa** and think through your words before you type. Give us a chance to help you out before loading up your weapons, OK? We really DO care about you – why else would we be doing this?

Oh, and for those of you who send kind emails and attagirls… you cheer captains keep us going with your kindness, and it absolutely makes our days to receive your sweet missives. Keep ’em coming! THANK YOU!

* My favorite phone app for breathing is CALM

** I was drinking Tazo Zen while I wrote this. Hey, I can hear you laughing!!

My favorite version of Try A Little Tenderness is this one, by The Commitments.

The post Try a Little Tenderness appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

I had the privilege and pleasure of being interviewed by Sandi Hazlewood, The Crafty Planner, for her podcast. It was SO COOL to talk about all the things that matter to us both. And if you ever wondered about what I sound like, here’s your chance!*

Listen to it here.

Sandi and I met at QuiltCon earlier this year, and have been slowly building an industry friendship. We share a love for both what we do, and for the quilting industry in general. I have always admired Sandi’s interviewing skills – she gets into the meaty stuff, and doesn’t shy away from asking important questions, even if they’re the hard ones. You’ll hear her disagree with me heartily on a couple of things (!) and honestly, I find it a refreshing change from softball interviews on easy topics.

When we talk, we seem to get deep in three sentences, and this interview was no different. We dug into a lot of stuff quickly, and we could have gone on for hours.

I hope you give it a listen, and subscribe to her podcasts in general via  iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. She has talked to a lot of really interesting people, and the interviews are fun and thought provoking.

* For the record, I’m always surprised to hear how American my accent is… I’m English, but have lost most of it. I came to the USA when I was 3, went back to GB at 9, and emigrated again at 19 – so I built the foundation of my speech in the US. Thus, my accent has been very fluid, and has settled back to mostly American, save a few words that give me away… cuppa anyone?! But in my head, I still speak like a Brit, and certainly read in my head in an English accent at times!

The post I’m on the Crafty Planner Podcast! appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

Several friends and colleagues have ably commented on their perceptions of this statement by the MQG (and I will link them up at the end of the post). I found it heavy-handed, exclusionary, and sadly in opposition to what I perceive to be the role of any organization in quilting… that of promoting inclusion, and encouraging people to learn, and to enjoy making more stuff. I didn’t see the post as supportive or reflective of the membership, and I also question how it supports members who make a living through teaching when it’s scaring their students away. I have heard/read so many people who now believe they shouldn’t take a class or enter a work in the MQG’s QuiltCon show, based on their interpretation of the MQG’s statement.

And this really saddens me.

Instead of exuberant curiosity for new frontiers, I see a contraction of interest based in fear of the MQG handing down judgement. And I see the likely rise of a new type of quilt police (oh no!) helmed by people who are going to nitpick the definition of derivation to death and beat us about the head with it. Won’t that be fun?

While Fear is pretty much always Art’s companion (for a brilliant discussion on this, read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic*), Fear should never be in charge of stopping you from making art. Fear also gets the upper hand if you let it keep you from learning more about HOW to make your art. Fear can be a real party-pooper, and frankly, we should push back on anyone that tries to use fear as a tactic to control us, in the arts or otherwise.

Taking classes from masters and copying their work is a time-honored tradition in art. Entire schools were founded on this principle during the Renaissance, and artists toiling in the masters’ studios don’t seem to have stifled innovation in the arts in any way for centuries. To assume such studying could squelch quilting is, to my mind, a disturbing vote of no-confidence in the abilities of our makers to continue to evolve. We haven’t failed yet, and I don’t see it coming anytime soon.

Few, if any, of us are born into any art or craft with a master’s knowledge and prowess. We gain mastery by practice. We figure out what to practice by getting curious about something that turns us on. We buy the book, follow the maker on social media, and take a class from them if we get the opportunity. To “copy” a master is to hope that walking in their footsteps for a day will give you access to a little of the magic that drew you to them in the first place.

Let me give you an example from my beloved photo professor, Larry Lytle. He encouraged every one of us to go sit on a hill, in the dark, next to a curvy road, and capture that long exposure shot of the headlights winding around a bend. You know this picture, you’ve seen it a thousand times. Well, so had Larry. He would have been happy to never see another, but he emphasized the importance in learning how to make it. To fire off an hour’s worth of exposures was to learn what you needed to do to capture it, and those lessons were the foundation of other things necessary to a photographic practice. I leaned heavily (and gratefully) on that lesson when I set out to take pictures of fireworks, because learning the skill was the point, not making the picture:

The same goes for us in quilting. Make the 4-patch and 9-patch while you are figuring out your basic skills. Graduate to more complex patterns. At some point, take that knowledge and graduate to making something that has no published pattern, if and only if you so desire. Keep learning. Keep making. Keep getting inspired by what you see.

KEEP ENJOYING. Suffering for art is a terribly tired trope. Have FUN with it, for heaven’s sake.

Should you enter it in a show? Maybe. Maybe not. If you’re worried that QuiltCon might be too judge-y for your modern quilt, then there are plenty of other venues to offer it to. The MQG is not the only game in town; there are larger, more established venues with waaaay more foot traffic that would love to see your work.

But consider this too: If you are only making your work for a competition, I think you’re missing the boat. Such fame is fleeting, and in the big picture, being Quilt Famous is to be a notable fish in a very small pond. Out in the big world we barely register. Making for shows can also unleash the Perfectionism Monster, a cousin of Fear, who likes to keep us paralyzed. Who needs this Dynamic Duo of Destruction?

Not me. Not you, either.

Why not, instead, make your work for the joy of expressing your vision? For the challenge of conquering an idea? For the victory of figuring out something that was really hard? To just make something beautiful?

Competition, schmompetition. Quilting is so much more than its blue ribbons. And so are you.

There is one upside to the MQG edict on derivatives though. It should mean we’ll see less of the “wonky improv log cabins in a field of negative space, matchstick quilted to death” quilts, right? Which, if you know your quilt history, are derived from Nancy Crow, Gwen Marston, and the ladies of Gee’s Bend. Just sayin’.

**************

Good posts to read:

Mandy Leins of Mandalei: You can’t break up if there wasn’t a relationship in the first place

Juliet, the Tartan Kiwi: Copyright/Copywrong

Weeks Ringle of Modern Quilt Studio: United We Stand

Lighthouse Lane Designs: Of Cabbages and Copyrights

*NOT an affilate link – and the audiobook is superb

The post Why You SHOULD Make Derivative Work: It Will Teach You Something appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

Some of my entrepreneurial pals with me at the book launch party!

I met some dynamic entrepreneurs at that party, and they quickly became half of my new circle of friends, with the other half coming from plugging into the vibrant quilting community here!

Last year, Chris put a call out to talk with people who had made the transition from one life to another, and I responded. We had a great Skype chat, and he asked me all sorts of questions about my former corporate IT career, my going back to school for Art, and my current incarnation as a pattern designer in the quilting industry.

That chat turned into a case study in his latest book, Born for This. It’s a useful read, especially if you are looking to change careers. In the world of entrepreneurship, it’s easy to find books that tell you to just pick a passion and leap, but this one is different. It leads you through looking pragmatically at your existing skills and passions, and shows you how to leverage those going forward. It doesn’t lose sight of the fact that you need to earn money while you develop your next thing, and talks about the value of the side hustle while you are transitioning. I love that the advice is practical and grounded, and not filled with airy unicorn dreams and glitter!

Chris is very intuitive and perceptive in his ability to tease out the the important threads of a story. During that chat, he was the first to point out to me that I use my favorite skills from my corporate days in my current entrepreneurial endeavors. It was a Steve Jobs-style “connect the dots looking backwards” moment that was very profound for me.

Feeling like a rock star, signing my chapter in Chris’ book

** All links are non-affiliate!

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There were several highlights for me, mostly around re-connecting with friends, or meeting new people, but I would have to say top on my list was seeing Chawne Kimber’s work in person, and then getting to really, deeply, talk with her. She is a lovely human – generous of her time, thoughtful with her words, and funny as hell. I also saw her speak on a panel about diversity in quilting, and she is formidably in command of both historical and current issues surrounding the race and gender conversations in our world. I am even more of a fan now.

Chawne uses her needle skills to say important things. She nails it with the razor sharp focus and acumen of an editorial cartoonist. Political cartoons require a decathlon of skills: you have to be in the thick of the conversation that is going on right now, understand its history, be able to tease out the most important (and likely least seen) nuances, write them large in a tight sentence or two, and then illustrate the heck out of them, exaggerating only certain details for specific effect. And do all of it in a timely fashion so they don’t look like last week’s joke.

Chawne had two quilts in the show:

“The One for Eric” by Chawne Kimber, hand quilting by Chawne Kimber, longarm machine quilting by Pamela J. Cole

In Chawne’s words:

The improvisational patchwork here is meant to remind one of graffiti scrawled impulsively on a wall in the shadows. Hand-quilting in winding trails of various reds invokes brick and blood.

A quilt in my “elegy” series, this one is for Eric Garner who was killed in a chokehold by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo on July 17, 2014 on Staten Island. His suspected crime was selling loose cigarettes on a street corner. Recorded in a viral video on a smart phone, these were Eric’s last words.

For me, these words are filled with meaning beyond the incident.

Some detail:

DETAIL: “The One for Eric” by Chawne Kimber, hand quilting by Chawne Kimber, longarm machine quilting by Pamela J. Cole

Her second quilt:

“Cotton Sophisticate” by Chawne Kimber, hand quilting by Chawne Kimber, longarm quilting by Pamela J. Cole

In her words:

“In essence, I am a sophisticated cotton picker.” This is a summary quote in southerner Eartha Kitt’s autobiography, Alone with Me, that has myriad (direct and indirect) meanings I identify with. This improvisational patchwork and kantha style handquilting is a direct callback to the make-do utility quilts made by my great-grandmother on a former cotton plantation in Wendowee, Alabama, at the turn of the last century. A small bit of visible mending is a love note to her.

Details:

Thank you for this work, Chawne. PLEASE keep ’em coming.

*

Chawne’s work and other great political quilts from QuiltCon were featured in an LA Times article here.

The post Important Quilts: Meeting Chawne Kimber appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

She contacted the pattern author, and found out that this is not how the patterns are produced. So somewhere along the distribution chain, it looks like this pattern might have been copied for re-sale.

Obviously, this is theft and fraud, not to mention very damaging to a designer’s livelihood and reputation as well. And just as obviously, a designer like me has no real way to police it. So I ask this favor of you: if you see a poorly produced copy of a pattern for sale, PLEASE contact the designer to let us know. If it’s getting stolen, we need to know. And if it’s a production snafu, we should know that too, so we can get a clean copy into your hands!

Many thanks to Janna Bailey for letting me tell this story, and for carrying the WASWI torch! Her original words (with her permission) are here:

Had an odd thing happen at PIQF this last October (2015). I purchased a pattern from a vendor and took it up to my room and opened it. The pattern looked like it was copied many,many times. Very grayed. I took it back down to the vendor. The owner was not there but the employee pulled out 3 more patterns and they were all just as bad. I wanted my $ back and was going to write a scathing note to the pattern maker. The employee said I had to come back the next day and talk to the owner. I went back to the vendor the next morning and she said she found a better pattern. I opened it and it was just fine. After thinking about it, I emailed the pattern maker anyway…but rather than berating her for a lousy pattern, I explained the situation and asked the question, “did you make the copies or was the vendor cheating you out of profits by making her own copies”. The pattern owner wrote back and thanked me, because she said all her patterns were clear copies. So I’d check patterns before you buy them and make sure they are clean and clear. And if not, I’d send a note to the pattern maker. It’s not fair that they should be losing their profits to a disreputable vendor. 

The post WASWI: Let designers know if you see their patterns copied appeared first on Hunter's Design Studio.

I’ll attempt to pull some threads together for you here (and these are just the ones I know of – please send me others you might think are important to this conversation and I’ll add them):

• Abby Glassenberg interviewed Luke Haynes on her podcast and asked him about gender in quilting
• Luke Haynes wrote about being asked “the gender question”
• Stephanie Boon wrote about why the gender question matters to her
• Stephanie Forsyth added her thoughts about men and quilting
• Molli Sparkles added his response (yes, his… Molli is the quilting persona of Joshua Helms)

And so here’s mine (and in just to clear up any confusion that my name, Sam, might generate, I am a white woman):

WE NEED TO KEEP HAVING THIS CONVERSATION.

Women have not achieved equality. So many people think the fight was fought and won in the 70s and 80s, but it is not won, at all. We still, on average, make around 75% of male salaries. Our bodies are governed by restrictive laws made in general by white men. Western politics are driven mostly by white men. Western religions are driven mostly by white men.

OUR HISTORIES ARE BEING MOSTLY DICTATED AND FRAMED BY WHITE MEN 

This country (USA) came closer to passing a constitutional amendment banning flag burning than it did the Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment that says were are to be treated equally, all men and women, all races and creeds. If you add the number of women in this country (all races) and all the non-white men, their majority far outweighs the white men, yet the power of the white male politics kept this amendment from passing. Think about it. Flag burning might be provocative, but it’s about an inanimate object, and ultimately about freedom of speech (which is protected). The ERA is about PEOPLE. It’s about our fellow humans. And it failed.

If we, as women, do not keep speaking up when we disagree our histories will be dictated and defined by voices that are not OURS. And we need the discourse, the discussions, the passionately fed-up rants and the well-argued dissenting opinions. We need ALL of these conversations to help broaden EVERYONE’S views, and to expose people to ideas they’ve never considered.

Both men and women need to stop trying to silence each other when they disagree, and instead, welcome the conversation. And men, you need to stop using the “you’re not being nice” style of shaming language to shut women up. Here’s an excerpt of a conversation that I endured on Facebook a year ago, when a man jumped into a conversation a female friend and I were having about an exhibition at the Craft and Folk Art Museum of quilts made by men (emphasis mine):

Man: Male quilters are a deviation from the norm, and not-normal grabs more attention. That said these men all are talented and deserve a show, at this museum or elsewhere. Taking more than that from this exhibit is, to me, not fair and doesn’t give the artists in this exhibit the benefit of the doubt.

Me: I concur that these men are talented. I concur that their “deviation from the norm” makes it easy to show their work as a collective. All that said, I get to have my opinion, as you obviously do yours. There is no way an exhibition of the fiber works of men will not create discussion in this industry. And for you to attempt to silence my opinion by telling me I’m not being “nice” by having any opinion that isn’t a flat out politically correct “rah, rah” cheer isn’t giving me the benefit of the doubt either. I will attempt to see this show. I will form opinions about the work and its makers, and about the politics of it (because you can’t discuss gender without politics, especially in fiber). And I will use my intellect and hard fought MFA (in fiber) to have a well reasoned opinion about it that is MINE. Dude, I’m not trying to pick a fight, but don’t tell me how I’m supposed to think about this thing. Women are ALWAYS being hold how to frame stuff. If you think there could be an all male show without discourse, you’re being naive.

Man: I’m not exactly sure how I was trying to silence you. The second comment on this thread is basically saying the artists in this exhibit are getting this attention because they have a penis [note, this was a comment made by the friend that sent me the article]. My first comment was me trying to be slightly funny-hurt. There’s a big difference between having a discussion and me trying to silence you. And if you can’t see that distinction then you’re being to (sic) reactive.

Me: I am reacting to “Taking more than that from this exhibit is, to me, not fair and doesn’t give the artists in this exhibit the benefit of the doubt.” Which I interpret as “So if you take more than that, it’s not fair to the guys, which isn’t nice, so be fair.” Which isn’t really encouraging me to have any discussion that doesn’t align with the “not fair” part.

So first I’m not being fair (or nice) and then when I defend my right to have an opinion, I’m being reactive. And the thing is, I don’t think this man could see how his language is silencing… it’s so prevalent in our culture that it just isn’t recognized, and it IS the product of privilege. This goes on EVERY DAY in the lives of most women. And often at the hands of other women, which NEEDS TO STOP TOO.

So in the spirit of not being silent, here are my responses to some of the ideas that are in the links above:

• On men being tired of being treated like minorities in the quilting world: Yes, you might be presumed to be the husband in a quilt store. I’m tempted to say, “Get over it. Welcome to the Land of Having Assumptions Made About You Based on Your Gender.” But not because I want men to “feel my pain” (wouldn’t it be lovely if this pain ceased to exist for ALL), but because I want men to understand how it feels, and thereby be galvanized to be at the forefront of teaching other men not to make those types of assumptions about women. And to the women in fabric stores – knock it off; teach more inclusivity by example.

• On men reacting to (whining about?) negative comment/commentary: Men need to get past the idea that their privilege dictates everyone agree with them, especially women. And I hope the men recognize the unequal safety of their pulpits… they don’t risk the death, mutilation, and rape threats women get as standard business practice just for speaking their opinions. And these threats silence us… we’re so scared to risk our safety, families, and businesses that we sit here mutely.

• On men getting professional opportunities: In the professional realm where women are dominant, like quilting, men get more opportunities because they stand out. When white men are the minority, the white male privilege upends the usual paradigm of minorities NOT getting increased professional opportunities. As Viola Davis said in her beautiful Emmy acceptance speech, “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” Women can’t get the exhibition opportunities that are not offered to them. What would happen if men asked the venue to stop making their exhibitions based on gender parity, and refused to participate unless the show was open to all? And venues: seek to make these shows of parity.

• On the intersection of fine art and craft: The fine art world is also run by a white male establishment. When fine art engages craft, the first rules of engagement follow that traditional structure, one of white male power which marginalizes women and people of color, and pays them poorly. The Guerrillla Girls have been illuminating this disparity for years, most recently on Stephen Colbert’s show. We still need to keep fighting it.

• On the title of the “No Girls Allowed” quilt exhibition coming up: Really? That title? I know this language was considered funny and cute in the 1940s with Spanky and Our Gang, but really? There is a LOT of language from that time we no longer consider acceptable. Why is this OK, and why is protesting about it not OK? The men might call their quilting group that (“But it’s tongue in cheek, it’s just a joke!”) but why on earth is the museum perpetuating it? We are not girls, we are women. (And as an aside, do we ever suffer for there not being a female word equivalent to “guy.” I made this art about that.)

• On men writing what they think is the history of women in quilting: Do your research, dammit. Before you carpetbag in with your ideas, study our history, and use us as primary resources. And be very careful… your privilege as a man will make you blind to nuances that are daily freight for women. The same goes for women: as a white woman, I think it naively presumptuous to assume I understand half of what it means to be a woman of color in quilting.

• On women being fairly compensated (compared to men): While the people doing the paying need to knock it off, women also need to step it up. We need to not wait politely to be handed our opportunities, but we need to go out there and ask for them, MAKE them, and negotiate to be paid well for them. We need to take a leaf out of Jennifer Lawrence’s book when she found out she was underpaid:

“When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early.”

• On being nice women: We have been so cultured to play nice and fair. SO cultured. And we are losing ground because of it. Back to Jennifer Lawrence again (really, just go read the whole thing):

“But if I’m honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn’t want to seem “difficult” or “spoiled.” At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being “difficult” or “spoiled.” This could be a young-person thing. It could be a personality thing. I’m sure it’s both. But this is an element of my personality that I’ve been working against for years, and based on the statistics, I don’t think I’m the only woman with this issue. Are we socially conditioned to behave this way? We’ve only been able to vote for what, 90 years? I’m seriously asking… Could there still be a lingering habit of trying to express our opinions in a certain way that doesn’t “offend” or “scare” men?

Absolutely YES, Ms. Lawrence. We are still tip-toeing.

We still have a long way to go. Women still need to do more for our own equality, and men need to help out by advocating for us, too. WE NEED TO KEEP HAVING THIS CONVERSATION until the points are no longer true.

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