To be a bit cliché, this shoemaker is a professional Web Developer and her child is this blog, but it was past time to launch what I have of a new design. All the content is still here, everything else is a work in progress (kind of like most of my sewing projects)!
I’ll admit that I’m an optimist and try to think the best of everyone, but let’s face it, sometimes people are willing to bend the rules so far that they break, and then they try to use duct tape and slight-of-hand to pretend they only made a little kink. Picture this: someone steals your content, pulls some tricks to make it look like they created it, and then serve you with a DMCA notice. Or, less far-fetched: you post something that you believe you have every right to repost and suddenly find yourself served with a DMCA notice.
You have recourse. You can send a counter notification that notes why you have the legal right to post the content in question.
The reasons for sending a counter notification are:
The copyright on the material has expired (i.e. it is in the public domain), therefore anyone can reproduce it.
The original material had no evidence that it was copyrighted and you have good faith belief that it is not.
This is perhaps the weakest of the excuses for recent material, because in general, your work is copyrighted as soon as it is created in a form that is copyrightable, so long as you can prove ownership.
The person who sent the original notice is not the copyright holder or their authorized agent and therefore can’t claim copyright violation.
If you are the copyright holder, this is where your proof comes in handy.
Your use of the content falls under ”fair use”.
The original complaint did not include all of the information required for a DMCA notice.
If you think any of those apply, you can send a counter notification that essentially tells your host that they cannot remove the content until the original complainant sues you.
If you are the original complainant, make sure that the offender can not easily claim any of the above. Of course, so long as you are the original creator, have a copyright notice on your site and dotted your ‘i’s and crossed your ‘t’s on the DMCA notice, the offender shouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
If the original filer does sue, or you receive a counter notification and decide to file suit, please contact a lawyer, because I am not one, and at that point, you need professional advice.
Although the deadline is seven months out, I’ve started researching for the 1812 Challenge Quilt. I’ve been doing what I can online, for now, with plans to hit the library soon.
This is an odd size to think about designing for. Most of the extant period quilts are square or counterpane-sized, some even almost-T-shaped to accommodate four-post beds. “Cot-to-coffin,” is a stretched rectangle of a size and aspect ratio you don’t often see in extant designs or in modern quilting.
Two weeks ago, I talked about how to request that stolen content be removed from the offending site. Using the methods provided by the DMCA, you can submit a request for removal of the stolen content to the host of the offending site. But how do you prove and protect your copyright?
To my knowledge1, my content has never been stolen and posted with attribution to someone else. However, a Twitter friend recently retweeted a message from another crafty blogger who found her tutorial and photos copied in their entirety on a blog full of egregious violations of copyright.
Luckily, thanks to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), US bloggers have a clear recourse to having their stolen content removed. Unluckily, DMCA claims can be made only by the copyright holder2 and relies on the copyright holder knowing that their content has been stolen. Bloggers in other countries may have some recourse as well (such as the EU’s EUCD), but you’ll need to research your own laws.
Here’s the code for the four buttons members have created so far (in no particular order):
Copy the provided code and add it to your site! If you have questions about how to do that, leave a comment with the type of blog you have or email me at rae@raevenfea.com and I’ll help you if I can.
Today’s public service announcement is: pictorial evidence of failure to remember to change needle as often as should be done.
Well, one of a few things that can happen. So, remember to change them, ladies and gentlemen, else you’ll get rather familiar with your seam ripper.
Luckily, I caught that one early. I also sewed an 80″ strip with no bobbin thread the other night while trying to sew and pay attention to Talkin’ Tuesdays at the same time. Brilliant, that. At least there was no seam ripping involved, since there was no seam.
Quilting tip of the month: wind a lot of bobbins of neutral cotton thread, so when you do run out, you can just pop a new one in. Piecing is pretty forgiving about thread color, within reason, so I just throw whatever is handy in. I almost always have some grey, beige, tan, light blue etc. bobbins around. It seemed so foreign to me, coming from sewing clothing, but now it makes a lot of sense.
To make up for a lack of real updates, here are a couple quick photos of works in progress. I’ll talk more about them at the end of the month, once they’re both finished and delivered.
I think most quilters develop a preference toward one type of batting, but as I progress in my quilting journey, I’m trying to experience all that’s out there. Okay, that’s PR speak for “so far I’ve chosen the precut closest in size to what I need that was either on sale or which I had a coupon for.” I’ve used cheap-o poly (yuck, although warm and lofty), Bamboo/Organic Cotton (love it), Warm & Natural for some small projects (like it a lot), and most recently Cream Rose by Mountain Mist for the Spring QAL project.
I can’t see myself using it in the future for quilts. While it is very soft and sews as well as W&N, it seems very insubstantial. It is much thinner than the bamboo/W&N—1⁄8″, according to the manufacturer—and the piece I had was not an even thickness; you could actually see through it in a few spots. It isn’t as warm as a slightly-higher, yet still low-loft batting, either, so I would classify it as a warm-weather quilt batting if I were to use it again. The QAL quilt wasn’t about warmth—it’s a picnic quilt to lay on the ground—but I wish I’d used something a bit thicker for more padding power.
I can see using it for some crafts in the future. It drapes well, and its thinness makes sense for wall hangings, table covers and runners, etc. The very thin spots aren’t all that obvious once quilted, and on a small scale with quilting even closer than the prescribed 6″, I don’t see it mattering much.
So, overall, not a waste of the $4 or so it cost me with a 40% off coupon at JoAnn (I bought the 45″ × 60″ crib size, but can’t find the receipt for the exact price), but not high on my list of future batting purchases unless I need to go very economical. Warm & Natural still wins on the “need something cheaper than bamboo” front for me.
Have you used this? What is your opinion of it? Do you have a favorite to suggest for me to try out next?
While I’m quilting away on the Spring QAL, and prepping the binding, I thought I’d share my binding method.
I don’t know that I ever officially learned how to make binding. In fact, after I publish this, I’ll probably head out into the quilt blogging world to re-learn from everyone else’s posted tutorials. The first quilt I made, I self bound. That means I folded the extra backing fabric to the front and sewed it down, rather than cutting it off. But for the bargello quilt and the Spring QAL I used straight-of-grain binding strips.
Binding strip width seems to be a matter of preference, to a large extent, and wider or narrower strips will result in wider or narrower binding, of course. However, a decent standard seems to be 2.5″ or 2.25″. I use the former, mostly.
When I was a kid rifling through my grandmother’s sewing supplies, I always got a kick out of the little berry thing that hangs off of the traditional tomato pin cushion. I never understood what it was for, I just thought it was cute and silly. Ok, no past-tense about it. I still think it’s a little cute and silly. But now I know what it is for.
The berry is filled with emery, which is an abrasive powder. Emery is commonly affixed to boards to create files, among other uses. In this case, its purpose is to keep needles clean and sharp.
Over time and with use, needles and pins will dull, tarnish, and burr (to different degrees depending on the quality of the metal), making it more difficult to push them through fabric. By running needles through the emery berry a couple of times before use, you help keep them in better shape, so they work much better as they age.
So there you have it. The berry does have a purpose. The most common use is for hand-sewing needles, but it can help pins and even machine needles.
Although the image above is of mine, which is the cheap Dritz one I picked up at Joann Fabric, these days you can get a wide variety.
There are also many free pincushion patterns on the Web, so you can make your own. Use the emery berry off of an old tomato one that needs replacement, and you’ll still have the useful berry around.
Is there another sewing whatsit that you want to know more about? Let me know in the comments. Also, if you know of any super cute pincushions or pincushion patterns, pass them along! After writing this post, I feel like I need something much cooler than my yellow tomato.
Is your fabric organza or organdy? What is the difference? The similarity in names for these two fabrics causes a lot of confusion. Both are sheer, crisp, plain-weave fabrics. The difference comes down to the type of yarn used to create the fabric.
Organdy, or organdie, is typically made of cotton fibers. The yarn is spun, meaning it is created by spinning together short fibers (called staple fibers) to create a long, continuous thread.
Organza is made of filament yarn, which is made from very long fibers, such as silk. Filament yarn is most often made of synthetic fibers in modern times, so most modern organza is synthetic, such as polyester, however silk organza can still be purchased.
That’s it. The difference is simply the type of fibers used: filament or staple.
Wondering what the difference between any other fabrics are? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll try to answer. Make sure to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you get your answer as soon as I publish it.
