You searched for star stuff - Hunter's Design Studio https://huntersdesignstudio.com/ Cool patterns + wordy stuff! Mon, 24 Jun 2024 03:23:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 79720629 Does learning Adobe Illustrator make you a Professional Quilt Pattern Designer? https://huntersdesignstudio.com/does-learning-adobe-illustrator-make-you-a-professional-quilt-pattern-designer/ Thu, 16 Mar 2023 22:47:26 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=23587 If you enjoy this post, I write more posts like this on my Substack, How to Own a Revolutionary Craft Biz.  Check it out! Note: I often write for my industry, and this is one of those such times. Interested in hearing this post as audio?  You can do so here! This question came up [...]

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If you enjoy this post, I write more posts like this on my Substack, How to Own a Revolutionary Craft Biz.  Check it out!

Illustration exceprt of the Big Star Diamond Quilt, made using Adobe Illustrator

Note: I often write for my industry, and this is one of those such times.

Interested in hearing this post as audio?  You can do so here!

This question came up recently in a conversation with a colleague: does learning Adobe Illustrator make you a professional quilt pattern designer?*

The TL;DR answer from my chair is NOPE.

But let me dig into this a bit, because once we start digging under the hood of such deceptively simple questions, it becomes obvious that there are nuances to consider.

The Adobe Creative Suite is considered the industry standard for graphic design, and a written and illustrated quilt pattern is definitely a form of graphic design. It’s also widely acknowledged that Adobe products are powerful and thus complex, requiring a steep learning curve to gain some skill.

I lucked out on learning Illustrator. I had to do it as part of the Foundations requirements for my BA in Art, and despite a semester-long class and a fabulous professor, there were many weekends of steaming frustration until I got the hang of the little bit I know.

Emphasis on the little bit I know.

I bet I know barely a tablespoon of what Illustrator can do, but the part I need to know to design patterns, I know well, and well enough to help out my friends and colleagues at times. The rest happily remains a mystery to me.

When I first started designing quilt patterns, there were often conversations in the community about just drawing a shape in PowerPoint, exporting it to Word, patting your head, rubbing your belly, and turning around three times while hoping it would stay correctly scaled through exporting it to a PDF. And my contribution to those conversations was usually, “For the love of all things, just learn the industry standard tool because that’s gotta be easier than all these other contortions.

Incidentally, I still advocate for learning Illustrator from the start rather than learning three other things on the way to it because burning the time to re-learn software is expensive, and you’ll never outgrow Illustrator.

But one of the things I’m aware of, after 30-plus years in this industry as both a consumer and a professional, is that for some tedious reason, people like to define irrelevant criteria by which they can justify their superiority and then use said criteria to create exclusion and bias. Using this situation as an example, it comes off like “I’m better than you because I use Illustrator and you don’t, and therefore you don’t belong.”

OUCH.

Thirty-five years ago, a different group of people argued that quilts were only “real” if they were hand-quilted. Or hand-pieced like grandma did it. To the people who still argue such points, I say to you: hand over your cell phone, your air-fryer, and the keys to your hybrid car.

Look, everything that still matters is going to evolve, so of course pattern writing is evolving, too. In my early quilting days, I remember buying patterns that were obviously library-produced photocopies with hand-drawn illustrations, and glossy photographs hand-glued to the pattern covers because that’s what was possible in 1989 when you were boot-strapping your biz.

Today’s evolution now includes several different software programs that can get you to a lovely pattern that downloads digitally on just about any device (including your phone!) or a gorgeous, commercially-produced, full-color booklet.

Skill-wise, if you hit a wall either in your capabilities or the limitations of your software, you’ll either level up your skills, your software, or your budget to pay people to make the tricky stuff for you. This is the way the human knowledge has always worked… “I don’t know something, I want/need to know it, so where can I find it, or who can I pay to deal with it?” I mean, it’s Google in a nutshell, without the creepy data mining practices.

So by all means, use EQ, Affinity, Inkscape, or Canva.

Or keep on patting your head while you wrangle with PowerPoint. If you hit a point one day where your ambitions or income are being held up by not learning Illustrator, I’m sure you’ll figure out what to do, or who to hire.

*BTW, the definition of professional is “one who follows an occupation as means of livelihood or for gain.”

To me, you are a professional pattern designer if your intent is to run a profitable business that designs and sells patterns.

The software you use to write them is irrelevant.

One of the assignments I conquered while learning Illustrator in college: Draw over a Michelangelo drawing. Took me allllllll weekend!

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Should You Take Ambassadorships? https://huntersdesignstudio.com/should-you-take-ambassadorships/ https://huntersdesignstudio.com/should-you-take-ambassadorships/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2022 17:44:14 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=19904 If you enjoy this post, I write more posts like this on my Substack, How to Own a Revolutionary Craft Biz.  Check it out! Note: I often write for my industry, and this is one of those such times.  The start of a year means the announcement of new brand ambassadorships! If you've ever thought [...]

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If you enjoy this post, I write more posts like this on my Substack, How to Own a Revolutionary Craft Biz.  Check it out!

Note: I often write for my industry, and this is one of those such times.  The start of a year means the announcement of new brand ambassadorships! If you’ve ever thought of applying for one, please give these thoughts a read to see if that bright shiny opportunity really IS in your best interests.

Please note that I’m NOT saying you shouldn’t do it.  I am saying you should give ambassadorships very careful thought and evaluation, especially if your time is precious!

The Company You Keep

  • First of all, let’s take a look at the company: if you’re chosen, you’ll be publicly associated with them, and perhaps their other ambassadors – sort of like dating a celebrity. So it’s important to know if their values align with yours, should either of you decide to take a public stand about something.

  • Contracts: yes, this arrangement should have a contract, because contracts protect EVERYONE. If the company won’t offer or agree to a contract, then you can’t guarantee the terms, and you, being the littlest player in the partnership, are the one that’s most likely to lose if issues arise.
  • More contracts: the contract should ALSO outline what they are going to do for you, not just what you’re doing for them. Look… it’s exciting to be offered an opportunity, but don’t let the excitement make you ignore what YOU need from the arrangement.

Show Me The Money!

  • Usually, you will not be paid for ambassadorships in the kind of currency you can use at a grocery store.
  • Usually, you will receive exposure on their site and/or social media. In fact, you will probably be chosen based on your social media numbers to boost theirs, not just your design skills.

  • So let’s talk about the product you might get (and note that I’m in the quilt industry so this is thru the lens of quilt related products): sometimes ambassadorships don’t get the coveted fabrics… you get the stuff that’s not selling well (in the hopes that this promo effort will boost it). It’s painful to try to pull something nice out of a ho-hum line of fabric, and the success of that will reflect on your design skills, not on a fabric line that has issues.
  • OR you might have access to their entire fabric or product line, but have the limitation to using only that company’s products publicly for the duration of the ambassadorship. One colleague noted that this meant she couldn’t help promote a friend’s new fabric for a different company.
  • Also, let’s talk about the cost of that fabric… to you, at retail, it might be $13/yard, but to the company supplying it at cost, it’s about $3 or $4/yd. So they’re giving you about $30-40 in fabric for a lap quilt (and you still need to supply everything needed to finish it).

  • What are your skills worth? With a consensus that minimum wage should be $15/hr, let’s just say your hourly rate as a skilled sewist should be at least $25/hr (and this doesn’t take your design skill value into consideration). So you are receiving product valued at about two hours of your time, and the rest of the time you put into it is your “donation” to the project.
  • If you’re receiving an expensive tool or a machine, you’ll probably have to return it once you leave the ambassadorship

Time: the Non-Renewable Resource

  • You’ll be need to make things with the products supplied, often on a specific schedule. Do you have the time to dedicate to this? How does it fit with your personal/family schedule?

  • How long does it take you to design something? Write it up?  Test and edit it? Sew it/quilt it/finish it? How is that stacking up against your “wages” above?
  • And are you being realistic about your time estimates? Pssst… multiply it by three for a better estimate – trust me.

Social Media and Exposure

  • The company will expect you to promote them on your social media and blog.
  • They’ll tell you how to promote their product. But often, your arrangement will not specify what they will do for YOU. How many posts you’ll feature in.  Whether or not they are IG stories (that disappear), or if you could be the last slide in an IG carousel, etc. This is the exposure you’re working for, so it’s important to understand exactly what they’re promising.
  • How much time does it take you to photo your work? Write and schedule and interact with your blog and social media posts? Make and edit videos?
  • Research: Go look at their posts that promote other artists. What percentage of their following are interacting with those posts? Look at your own stats: do your promo posts get good traction, or does your following prefer something else? There’s nothing more frustrating that working hard on content that isn’t seen.

  • AND remember that all social media posts are at the whim of the ever-changing algorithms.  Everything we post is becomes the equivalent of the newspaper on the bottom of the digital birdcage pretty quickly.

Adding It Up

Based on your math, the cost of your time versus the value of the exposure,  are ambassadorship a good deal for you? Would it be better to buy the yardage/product/tool you like, and make things, on your own timeline, that excite you?

And if you add up those hours for a year, is there a bigger, better project you could take on that will move your business further?

 

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Technical Editing Form https://huntersdesignstudio.com/technical-editing-form/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 21:22:28 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?page_id=19574 TECHNICAL EDITING FORM Please fill the below form out, and once we agree on a timeframe, I’ll send you a contract to sign and return with a PDF of your pattern. If you have any questions at all, please get in touch! Fine Print Stuff: --I’ll send back your PDF with typed edits [...]

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TECHNICAL EDITING FORM

Please fill the below form out, and once we agree on a timeframe, I’ll send you a contract to sign and return with a PDF of your pattern. If you have any questions at all, please get in touch!

Fine Print Stuff:
–I’ll send back your PDF with typed edits and suggestions, and will attach additional notes and drawings if I think they might help.
–I charge $50 USD per hour, and bill in 15 minute increments.
–I will present an invoice with the final pattern edits; please pay it within 48 hours. I invoice through Quickbooks for US customers, and PayPal for non-US.
–We agree to keep each other’s work and intellectual property completely confidential.

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Hunter’s Design Studio https://huntersdesignstudio.com/ Mon, 27 Jul 2020 04:13:24 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?page_id=11677 HUNTER'S DESIGN STUDIO Welcome! I’m glad you’re here! Pour yourself a nice cuppa and come explore… I have cool stuff for you to play with! I’m a quilt and embroidery pattern designer, and my philosophy is to help people have fun while they make more things! I love to lecture and [...]

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HUNTER’S DESIGN STUDIO

Welcome! I’m glad you’re here!

Pour yourself a nice cuppa and come explore… I have cool stuff for you to play with!

I’m a quilt and embroidery pattern designer, and my philosophy is to help people have fun while they make more things! I love to lecture and teach, and thanks to the wonders of virtual technology, we can meet up no matter where you live.

Thanks for popping by!

HUNTER’S DESIGN STUDIO

Welcome!
I’m glad you’re here!

Pour yourself a nice cuppa and come explore… I have cool stuff for you to play with!

I’m a quilt and embroidery pattern designer, and my philosophy is to help people have fun while they make more things! I love to lecture and teach, and thanks to the wonders of virtual technology, we can meet up no matter where you live.

Thanks for popping by!

HANG OUT WITH ME!

CHECK OUT THE LATEST!

Follow me on Instagram for the latest adventures of LEGO® Sam!

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The subtle racism that’s destroying the quilting industry https://huntersdesignstudio.com/the-subtle-racism-thats-destroying-the-quilting-industry/ https://huntersdesignstudio.com/the-subtle-racism-thats-destroying-the-quilting-industry/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2020 14:03:14 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=11268 Note: I occasionally write for my industry, and this is one of those such times. By now we’ve seen many organizations within the quilting industry take a publicly anti-racist stance. Some stances have been prompt and willing, some only exist through goading, some have been powerful, and some have been so carefully tepid as to [...]

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Note: I occasionally write for my industry, and this is one of those such times.

By now we’ve seen many organizations within the quilting industry take a publicly anti-racist stance. Some stances have been prompt and willing, some only exist through goading, some have been powerful, and some have been so carefully tepid as to essentially mean nothing.

Talk is cheap. Actions matter more, and a few days ago I witnessed an appalling and disappointing disconnect between a stance of support for diversity in my industry, and how that support played out in what should have been a minor conflict, if that.

This happened in the Facebook group of Craft Industry Alliance, a professional, for-profit organization with paid membership. As our current version of the anti-racism revolution was building steam in late May/early June after the murder of George Floyd, this organization made haste to start posting more links to black-owned businesses, and in general made a pretty good performance of being woke.

I’ll back up here and say that these groups exist for people like me (women who own craft businesses) to find peers, and they’re not generally full of chatter. They’re full of questions from members looking for solutions, and a small subset of the membership has taken the responsibility for helping others seriously. If you’ve known me a while, you know that I’m rabid about helping women stand tall in their business shoes and rise (I believe we all rise together) and I’m one of that small subset.

Another thing you need to know about craft businesses is that the people who own them usually sort of fall into it. They were passionate about a craft thing, and had a bit of business sense, and those two things got together and birthed a baby business. And like parenting, you’re doing everything by the seat of your pants for a while. You make a lot of early mistakes, like getting yourself into contracts that aren’t in your best interests once you understand the fine print.

Finding a peer business group makes you feel a little less lonely. And when you get helped by the smart and experienced members, it usually saves you a bunch of time, if not a bunch of money you might have left on the table in innocent ignorance.

I have colleagues in these groups who are helpers, like me. There are several of us, but I’m going to tell you about one in particular, Ebony Love of LoveBug Studios. She’s smart, and she’s generous with her smarts. She’s well over a decade into running her businesses successfully (note the plural on that), and she’s known for being an authority in many facets of business operations, one of them being how intellectual property is assigned, handled, and defended. In other lives she has run projects for Fortune 100 companies, so yes, as we say, she has the receipts. And in this life, she’s in the groups every day, crafting extensively detailed answers to most questions, for free.

And now, to the incident that I find upsetting:

A member sold a pattern to Craftsy some years ago, and recently tried to get the intellectual property rights to the pattern back. Craftsy (now Bluprint, under NBC) has a pretty well-proven track record of looking out for themselves before anyone else, and replied with a hard “nope.” So our disappointed member was in the group, trying to crowd-source legal advice to go fight NBC (and let’s just let that sink in, shall we… crowd-sourcing legal advice on Facebook. Hm.)

Ebony waded in to answer, pointing out that intellectual property rights get assigned forward in contracts. She noted what specific phrases around this to look for in the contract, with the conclusion that she (the pattern author) would likely not prevail in a fight but hey, go read the contract anyway. It was a typical Ebony answer: practically written, full of pertinent info, and offered freely. And probably worth about $500 in attorney dollars.

Shortly after, the post disappeared.

Those of us who contribute our time and answers to these groups make a point of periodically reminding members that, while the answers might be written to them specifically (in terms of the hierarchy of a Facebook response) they’re written for the good and education of all in general, and so leaving them standing benefits everyone. It’s why we take the time to help.

And so, Ebony sent that reminder out, again, pointing out that shutting down posts silences the contributors, and dampens discourse in the community.

And this is where it gets interesting:

Abby Glassenberg, who owns Craft Industry Alliance, made a lengthy statement about being extra kind when we respond because the tone* of our voices gets lost in the written word. Ebony pointed out that, equally, you shouldn’t make tone assumptions about the intent of people’s written words, either. The original poster, Deb Buckingham, at this point said she asked for help, not attacks, and followed that up with “I’d suggest that you don’t take things personal (sic)” – hot on the heels of her own self being personally offended by being told to read her own contract.

Whew.

And then, right after Ebony apologized for upsetting her, the admins shut off the comments on the post.

Why is this all a big deal, you ask? This is why: Ebony is a woman of color.

First, her words got deleted.

Second, she got tone-policed by two different white women, one who got her feelings hurt over competent free advice (and who seems incapable of taking her own “don’t take it personal” medicine), and the other defending the first’s hurt feelings and trying to keep it all blandly happy in the group.

Lastly, she was cut off from the opportunity to respond.

Silenced.

Apparently, frank business advice is supposed to be delivered with a side of emojis and cookies if you are a woman of color delivering it.

I called Abby Glassenberg to talk this over with her, privately and personally. Abby is a well-intentioned woman, and she’s trying to do good things with this group – all things I strongly support. But I’m under the impression from our conversation that she still doesn’t see the incredible WRONGNESS of telling a black woman to be nicer, publicly, in a Facebook group, and then silencing her.

I asked Abby if she would have treated me the same way (I’m a white woman), and she said she wouldn’t have to because I don’t talk to people “that way.” Friends, I DO talk to people that way, and I write to them that way, too. I’m known for being as blunt as a two-by-four, for not suffering fools (especially those who won’t attempt to conduct their businesses like professionals), and potty-mouthed to boot.

The issue here is that neither of these women sees themselves as racist, so they can’t see how their ACTIONS are racist. So let me state once more for the people at the back: Tone-policing a black woman in a business forum for a clear, factual, business tone is RACIST.

I feel like Craft Industry Alliance is at a critical crossroads now. Either it becomes the professional business resource the craft industry needs, or it becomes just another group where non-controversial sweetness matters more (and is policed unequally based on skin color) than being able to occasionally say the hard stuff that truly helps our membership rise as professionals. And as an aside, the first thing you need to acquire when starting a business, after your domain name, is some thick skin.

Craft Industry Alliance needs to get super clear on fixing the racist actions, and outline communication and moderation policies that specifically protect the voices of our members of color. Until this is in publicly in place, I don’t see how this space is safe or supportive for our BIPOC members.

Ebony left the group, and we all lost an incredibly valuable resource. It also makes the group less diverse, which is NOT reflective of the diverse populations our businesses serve.

I’m staying in the group, for now, in the hopes that it can pivot into the professional, diverse resource our industry needs.

Talk is cheap. Actions matter.

We’ll be watching.

* Regarding the issue of tone… tone is ALL in the mind of the reader. We decide how we will hear or read things, and we assign it an emotional tone. We often do this to support our beliefs. For example, if I think all car mechanics think I’m a dumb woman, I will unconsciously be looking for evidence of that bias in any exchange I have with one, and will probably find it so I can then get upset about it, which further validates my beliefs. Reading Ebony’s words as an attack is 100% in the mind of the reader.

All comments are moderated before publishing.

06.22.20:09.32am – edited to correct Deb Buckingham’s name

06.22.2020:11:37am – edited to link Ebony’s personal response to this incident

 

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Spring Clean Your Studio – 2019 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/spring-clean-your-studio-2019/ https://huntersdesignstudio.com/spring-clean-your-studio-2019/#comments Mon, 06 May 2019 11:00:30 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=8141 We're back again with the 2019 edition of the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop! My friend Cheryl Sleboda of muppin.com and sewmuchcosplay.com puts this together every year so that our readers get a peek behind the scenes of different studios. If you've followed me on this in the previous years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) [...]

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We’re back again with the 2019 edition of the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop! My friend Cheryl Sleboda of muppin.com and sewmuchcosplay.com puts this together every year so that our readers get a peek behind the scenes of different studios.

If you’ve followed me on this in the previous years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) you know that I’m not a terribly messy person. I find a tidy studio really inspiring and welcoming. I also frequently have friends over to sew at the weekend, or run classes in this space, so I’m always changing things around to fit the work or the people, and thus mess never lingers.

Friends over to sew – one of my fave ways to spend time!

The first rule of tidying up is you have to do what WORKS FOR YOU. Please don’t use my tidy studio as a way to beat yourself up! There is no perfect way to do this – for me it happens when I hit some level of critical mass, often precluded by having a pile of something fall over on me!

I know people who find a lot of inspiration in spaces that have a lot going on in them – I just don’t happen to be one of them. In this world of so much perfect imagery coming at us, the most important thing is YOU DO YOU. Find out what needs to happen in your space to make you feel happy to be in it, and creatively motivated, and THAT is your perfect studio, or kitchen, or home!

Despite keeping a clean studio, I can have other stuff pile up on me, and in the last few months my books have been piled everywhere. On the kitchen table. In the living room. In the office. On the floor of my bedroom. So I decided to take care of those for this blog post – and I was happy to have a motivating deadline for getting it done!

I keep my bookshelves in my bedroom, and they were beginning to feel overloaded, and like they were looming over me.

Too many things just shoved on top sideways.
More sideways stacks, and a pile on the floor!
On top of my bed…
In my office… all of them out because I was researching something for a lecture I was giving back in January!
In the kitchen…

No one pile was really out of hand, but the sum of the parts was making me a bit crazy.

First I went through each section and pulled things that no longer interested me. Either I’ve read it and I’m done with it, or I bought it when I was interested in something I’m no longer pursuing. And let’s face it, if I get interested in it again, I can always find the book again if I need it.

  • Quilt books – I culled those that I no longer use for reference. They’ll go to my guild’s book library.
  • Art technique books – I pulled those for art techniques I’m not working with any more. I doubt I will ever try landscape watercolor painting again!
  • Language reference stuff – when I bought these books, I didn’t have a smartphone in my pocket, and now a lot of the information in those books can be found on the internet in seconds.
  • Old travel guides – if I go back to those countries I’ll buy an updated version.
  • Old magazines are off to the doctor’s office. I have a huge stack of Uppercase Magazine too… I love them, but I think I might need to gift them on as the evidence says I don’t usually go back to them once I read them. I’m several issues behind, so I might need to re-evaluate buying a subscription again, although dang, I do love to support a woman-owned publication!
  • School books – I still had a few dusty art theory books from when I did my MFA in 2010. Trust me when I say some of these are the kind you only read when they’re assigned for homework, so the chance of me reading them again is zero!
  • Entrepreneurial books – many of my entrepreneur friends often recommend this book or that, and I dutifully go buy them. And then they sit on my shelf for years. One wise biz friend (whose project planning methodology I use) told me instead to just look for a book to solve a problem when I was actively trying to solve the problem, and not to buy things that weren’t in the “working on this NOW” category. Good advice for keeping the book budget in check, and the clutter down.
One of the many sorting piles that happened all over the house!

The second rule is that you shouldn’t get rid of the things that make you happy, even if no one else sees the value of them!

I have more than a passing interest in mid-century pamphlet-style cookbooks. They were often published by a food manufacturer, and the books stretched to include that brand or ingredient in every single recipe. One of my favorite finds was this one, whose recipes all include salt. I know… salt?!

I also love the delightful mid-century illustrations:

Are they chefs? Or ballet dancers? Or just happy people??

And most of all, I find such humor in the recipes that sound just dreadful:

My kiddo would NOT have found any of these interesting!

Once I had the books pared down, I re-grouped them by subject (I would LOVE to do it by color, but not having them categorized would make me itch!)

And then I shifted the placement for some of the subjects… I used to have quilting on one side of the room, and embroidery on the other. Now I feel like my categories flow a bit better, which means they can share shelves if needed. In the process, I reclaimed another shelf on which to store quilts, too.

Now it looks like this:

There’s even a little space here and there!

And this is the pile that I’ll be donating to my library once my friends have had a chance at them:

Oh… and here’s my tidy studio!

All tidied up and ready for a new project!

Please take a peek at the rest of the studios on the hop – you’re likely to find inspiration there!

April 29 – Linda Bratten – http://lindabcreative.blogspot.com/
April 30 – Sandra Johnson – http://www.sandrajohnsondesigns.com
May 1 – Jennifer Schifano Thomas – http://www.Curlicuecreations.com
May 2 – Becca Fenstermaker – http://www.prettypiney.com
May 3 – Sue Griffiths – http://www.duckcreekmountainquilting.com
May 4 – Kate Starcher – http://katiemaequilts.com/blog
May 5 – Jo Westfoot – http://www.thecraftynomad.co.uk/blog
May 6 – Sam Hunter – https://huntersdesignstudio.com <– you’re here!
May 7 – Simone Fisher – http://simonequilts.com/blogs/news
May 8 – Elisabeth DeMoo- http://www.brownbirddesignsquilts.com
May 9 – Sarah Myers –  http://www.quilted-diary.com/blog
May 10 – Amy Bradley – http://www.purplepineapplestudio.com
May 11 – Kathy Nutley – http://www.QuiltingsByKathy.com
May 12 – Carla Henton – http://createinthesticks.blogspot.com/
May 13 – Sherry Shish – http://www.poweredbyquilting.com
May 14 – Kate Colleran – http://www.seamslikeadream.com/blog
May 15 – Pamela Boatright – https://www.pamelaquilts.com/
May 16 – Cathy McKillip – http://wishuponaquilt.com/blog
May 17 – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com

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Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop 2018 – a vintage cabinet joins my studio! https://huntersdesignstudio.com/spring-clean-your-studio-blog-hop-2018-a-vintage-cabinet-joins-my-studio/ https://huntersdesignstudio.com/spring-clean-your-studio-blog-hop-2018-a-vintage-cabinet-joins-my-studio/#comments Sat, 05 May 2018 12:00:16 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=6654 Yes, it's time to clean up my studio again! My friend and creative whirlwind Cheryl Sleboda is again hosting the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop (I love this blog hop project!) and today is my day to show you the latest version of my studio. I hope you check in on all the participants [...]

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Yes, it’s time to clean up my studio again! My friend and creative whirlwind Cheryl Sleboda is again hosting the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop (I love this blog hop project!) and today is my day to show you the latest version of my studio.

I hope you check in on all the participants – see below for a list with links! So many people have some great solutions to working in all kinds of spaces – you’re sure to see a tip or trick that will really inspire you!

To see my studio cleanup in prior years, go here for 2015, here for 2016, and here for 2017. These post also containing links to many of the posts I’ve written about how I keep my studio tidy.

So, to my current space…

This was what was going on in my studio a month or so ago, when my friends Heather and Chris of RemnantPDX (a vintage furniture company) posted a picture of a fun and funky filing cabinet:

Just look at all that 70s color! And it had ORANGE doors too!

As it happened, I had been pondering how to get more shelf space into my studio, but I wasn’t keen on having another open wire rack. And as usual, the chaos was building up on top of my fabric drawers. This is always the catchall for heaps of studio stuff, and it makes me a little crazy (I don’t like working in clutter). I didn’t need a filing cabinet for paperwork (I keep as much as possible electronically) but the shelving possibilities it had were intriguing.

I was also feeling like the art on my wall was in need of a good shuffle. A quick measurement of the space showed me that the filing cabinet would fit, so I made an appointment to go look at it.

I absolutely loved it! And Chris kindly delivered it the next day!

The first task was to break down the wall art and move everything out of the way. And sweep behind everything I could reach while I had the chance!

The cabinet squeezed into the space available – I didn’t have to scoot the bulletin boards.

Then the fabric drawers went back in, and I started moving things into the cabinet. Note that I use flat-headed extension cords to keep access to the power sockets that always seem to end up behind things.

One of things I really like about the cabinet is that the doors swing up and slide back, out of the way. I also love that I can CLOSE the doors to hide messy piles if I need to, as I use this space as a dining room when I invite friends over to eat.

Lastly, I put the art back up on the walls, adding some new pieces and moving some to other places in my home.

This is the current view (I’m still secret #sewingatthespeedofsam for quilt market so I can’t show you the rest!) I’m really loving that bright pop of colors in the room, and the extra storage has been so useful for keeping my projects together while they are queued up for attention.

Another thing that got sorted out during this shuffle were my small solids boxes. I had everything crammed into 8 small boxes, and things were so tight it was painful to find anything in them.

I expanded them to 12 boxes, which allowed me to better group the colors, as well as pull one piece out without the box exploding at me!

 

Please stop by the rest of the blog hop participants to see how they are managing their studios!

April 23 – Lori Crawley Kennedy – http://theinboxjaunt.com/
April 24 – Jennifer Thomas – http://curlicuecreations.blogspot.com
April 25 – Robin Koehler – http://nestlingsbyrobin.blogspot.com
April 26 – Andi Barney- https://www.andibarney.com/
April 27 – Misty Cole – http://www.mistycole.com/blog
April 28 – Carolina Moore- http://alwaysexpectmoore.com/
April 29 – Heather Pregger – https://heatherquilts.blogspot.com/
April 30 – Linda Bratten – https://lindabcreative.blogspot.com/
May 1 – Lisa Reber – https://dippydye.blogspot.com/
May 2 – Teresa Coates – http://www.crinkledreams.com
May 3 – Lisa Chin – http://www.lisachinartist.com/
May 4 – Jamie Fingal – http://www.jamiefingaldesigns.com/
May 5 – Sam Hunter – www.huntersdesignstudio.com     <<——- you are here!
May 6 – Jessee Maloney – www.artschooldropout.net/blog
May 7 – Randa Parrish – http://www.sewartsyfartsy.com/
May 8 – Sarah Vedeler- https://meaningoflifedesigns.com/
May 9 – Jessica Darling – https://jessicakdarling.com/
May 10 – Melody Crust – http://www.melodycrust.com/
May 11 – Debby Brown – http://higheredhands.blogspot.com
May 12 – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com

 

 

 

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Try a Little Tenderness https://huntersdesignstudio.com/try-a-little-tenderness/ https://huntersdesignstudio.com/try-a-little-tenderness/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2017 19:05:38 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=5084   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 [...]

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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.

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WASWI – One of My Patterns Has Been Plagiarized https://huntersdesignstudio.com/waswi-one-of-my-patterns-has-been-plagiarized/ https://huntersdesignstudio.com/waswi-one-of-my-patterns-has-been-plagiarized/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2016 13:00:58 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?p=4244   I'm pretty steamed. I've discovered that someone who bought my Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches pattern has ripped it off, obviously believing the "just change 5 things or X percent and you're safe" nonsense. Whatever the nuts and bolts of copyright law might state about what is in the public domain and what can't be protected on [...]

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I’m pretty steamed.

I’ve discovered that someone who bought my Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches pattern has ripped it off, obviously believing the “just change 5 things or X percent and you’re safe” nonsense.

Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches features three different sizes of zippy pouches. One is long and thin - a pencil pouch, the other is rectangle shaped, and the third is cube shaped.

Whatever the nuts and bolts of copyright law might state about what is in the public domain and what can’t be protected on a pattern for a functional product, it’s just freaking WRONG to plagiarize someone else’s stuff to make money from it.

Look. Most of this industry is made up of nice women, women who often get railroaded by corporate policies that abuse our niceness. We should be looking out for each other, supporting each other, protecting each other. NOT STEALING FROM EACH OTHER. If you have to hide behind the minutiae of copyright law to justify your actions you KNOW you are doing something slimy. So don’t do it. Just DON’T.

If you want to write patterns, then by all means come up with an original idea, and find your way to executing it. When I set out to write this pattern, I hadn’t ever owned nor made any other zipper pouch pattern. I decided I wanted to make a pattern that had a formula for making ANY size you could dream up, and I made a dozen samples getting to that. Yes, I have boxed corners in bags before – there are really only two ways to do it – and I chose the technique that works most accurately for me for the pouch. I didn’t steal anyone’s drawings on how to construct the pouch, I looked at the one in my hand and drew my illustrations from observation. Is it the first ever zippy pouch pattern? Nope. Will it be the last? Nope. Is it all my own work? YES.

Designing is hard work. You have to have your finger on the pulse of the industry to keep current on trends, and at the same time, you need NOT to be looking at too much other stuff or it will pollute your head. For instance, if there is a trend of flying geese going on, by all means design something goose-y with your favorite construction method, but start with a blank slate when you do.

The person who stole my pattern came up with handles to add to it. If you have such an idea, the appropriate way to handle it is like Elizabeth at Occasional Piece did with her modifications to make a mini Sew Together Bag. She wrote her mods in such a way that they did not divulge the content of the original pattern, and then offered it for free on her blog. Bravo. New idea shared, original idea protected. Boom.

If you can’t generate your own ideas yet, you aren’t ready for the prime time arena of the pattern design industry. Despite what might look like overnight successes to an observer, it takes a LOT of work to become decent at this, and even those of us who’ve been at it a while sweat every pattern we attempt. You have to sew a LOT of other stuff to be able to discern and design good construction techniques, and you need to learn expensive software (or hire expensive help) to present your writing and drawings/photos well. What you don’t see is the seventeen tries to get it right before we send it out, nor the anguish that consumes us when, despite our best efforts, an error slips through. You don’t see the teams of unsung testers that help out. You don’t see the mounting scraps of expensive fabric sacrificed to the process. Pattern design involves several learning curves and shortcutting them with plagiarism is not only bad form, it cheats you of the skills you ought acquire to create a long lasting design career.

While I don’t think my plagiarist is an inherently evil or vindictive person*, her willingness to “dabble in pattern design” by dancing on my toes smacks of an ignorance born of casual disregard for what it takes to survive in this industry. She thought she could make a quick buck. While I fully acknowledge that I do this for money, there is no quick buck involved in a carefully crafted pattern. I have somewhere close to 60 hours invested in Chunky Wee Zippy Pouches, from pondering the first idea to sending the first pattern to a distributor, to say nothing of the fabric, fusibles and zippers I ate up along the way. I also write patterns because I care deeply about creating a happy experience for our makers. I want people to enjoy quilting so they do more of it, not give them poorly written crap that wastes their time and their fabric, not to mention makes them want to quit the craft.

While I’m angry that my pattern was poached, I’m even more frustrated with the time this has cost me – time I could have used to design something new to grow my pattern business. I have had to research copyright law, capture screen shots of her website and Facebook pages to support my case, consult my colleagues and legal team, talk to the person that did it (and no, it was no fun to do that), write a Cease and Desist letter, and make a trip to the post office to send it certified. I have had to send pictures of her patterns to my distributors to request that they not purchase them as they are based on mine. I’ve wasted a ton of time trying to get calm about it, and formulating an action plan. I probably could have made a whole new design in the time this has cost – and it’s a loss I’ll never recoup.

In conclusion, I just want to appeal to a higher morality amongst us, regardless of any convoluted points of law. Don’t steal from or undercut your fellow humans. We face enough battles without being attacked by people who should be our peers. Up your game and we all win, truly. #WASWI

Thanks for reading.

Sam Signature

* I am choosing not to name this person, nor link to her because I believe that it could turn ugly. I’ve seen and experienced enough nasty internet hate to believe that few people, if any, who receive it, deserve it. I sincerely hope she appreciates that.

 

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Star Stuff – PDF https://huntersdesignstudio.com/product/star-stuff/ Thu, 10 Dec 2015 02:58:51 +0000 https://huntersdesignstudio.com/?post_type=product&p=2877 Brilliant stars abound! Each 15’’ star is made of four identical sections of easy paper-piecing. The pattern includes fabric pre-cutting instructions for fast piecing with minimal waste. RECOMMENDED: Newsprint or Vellum for copying the paper-piecing patterns. See second image for detailed fabric requirements. See below for more details! Shopping from the EU/Great Britain?  Purchase Star [...]

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Star Stuff is a fat quarter friendly quilt you can make using easy foundation paper piecing.  Star Stuff is a multi-sized quilt pattern, and includes instructions for a crib sized quilt all the way to king sized quilt.  This quilt pattern is an ideal foundation paper piecing pattern for beginners.

Be sure to check out all of the cool versions of this pattern by searching for the #starstuffquilt on Instagram.  Be sure to add the hashtag to any social media posts about your quilt!

SKILLS: Paper-piecing; all straight seams, attention to not stretching bias edges on the blocks; decent 1/4” seam accuracy.

To check for pattern updates go HERE.

Please go to the Hunter’s Design Studio YouTube channel for tutorial videos to help you make quilts!

DELIVERY:

When you purchase the PDF you’ll receive a link to a digital file via email, not a physical paper copy. PDF patterns are delivered via email within an hour of ordering (please check your spam folder if it doesn’t arrive promptly), and can also be downloaded from your account.

FINE PRINT:

This listing is for a quilt pattern ONLY, and does not include fabric or a finished quilt.

All sales are final – no returns accepted.

 

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