Wee Wonderfuls

construction man

Happy crazy candy day! Oscar finished off his busy day of sugar ingestion in an open mouthed coma in the car on the way home and I'm feeling the same way. So, more soon, including those make-a-long patterns. But for now, me and my little village person are turning in early.

Chapter Two

No, don't worry, not chapter two of my discourse on copyright, but rather chapter two of Make-a-long is up! The patterns aren't ready yet but you can go take a peek of what's in store.

The new pages start here.

some rights reserved

There is a new trend in my inbox. People emailing to ask my permission to link to this or that and a few people who seem to be actually policing the internet on my behalf. So I guess I'll just go ahead and weigh in on the copyright issue. Here are my two cents.

my personal preferences:

I'm going to start with these because this may be all people want to know and they can stop reading and also it'll set you up for the rest of my bit.

You do not need to ask my permission to

• link to a post of mine (actually you don't need anyone's permission if you're just linking)
  
• add a permanent link to my site on your site (thanks btw!)
• post linked and cited photos or excerpts of my text from my site. you can either grab them and put them on your server or use the direct link to them.

Now please do not think (or worry) I am giving permission for people to take my images and put them up uncited and unlinked on their site or that I'm giving people permission to scrape my site and throw it up on their ad-bearing site or inviting crazies who want to pull my rss feed into their blog and pretend they are me. I'm obviously not. The thing is, those people don't give a shit what I'm saying here. They will do what they want regardless and I do not wish to treat every visitor to my site as if they are that person.

my reasoning:

To me, it's what the internet and blogging are all about -- quick and easy dissemination of information. Sharing of ideas. Without linking to other people's content half the sites I read would disappear, Boing Boing, Go Fug Yourself, Apartment Therapy, Design Sponge, Whip Up, etc. The idea behind this sharing is fair use which allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. Certainly infringement happens and content is misused. Such vulnerability is an inherent risk in putting any content out for the world to see. For me, the benefits considerably outweigh the risks.

from the creative commons website:

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare "some rights reserved."

Thus concludes my book report on copyright and the internet. Thanks for listening!

Tomorrow, buttons :) Or maybe make-a-long if I can get some work done.

Antique Mall Finds

I was going to sing you a sad song of my latest bout of blog fatigue but instead, some color.

Friday already?

Man, oh man. This week has been a blur. I had the best intentions for posting every day this week and stuff just kept getting in the way. Dark & dreary weather not good for photo taking... errands errands errands... outings... and geesh, worst distractor of all lately - the internet! So many hot button issues popping up everywhere. I jump up from my sewing machine every five minutes, go to the computer and start writing a post on copyright and fair use and then I think, oh, no, this needs to be carefully written, don't have the time, etc and back to the sewing machine I go. Five minutes later, whole routine all over again. All these real life distractions. I don't know what I'm thinking. I've even been reading the news for chrissakes. I've seen my to do list. I know this is high season for over the top freak craftiness. I gotta keep my head in the game!

I did, despite all the muttering to myself, manage to get all of the next issue of the make-a-long projects made! Now I just need to, you know, create patterns and write instructions and make PDFs. The easy stuff. ha.

Also checked off my list, the first attempt at bringing drawing to life for my idea for Christmas ornaments this year. I really like how she turned out. She kinda compliments the ornament designs I made for Cutting Edge magazine. Now I just need to make a little choir of them and then see how well my plan will work out. I was hoping to make holiday patterncards this year. Half holiday card/half pattern, perfect for all the diy'ers in your life. Of course if you like robots I have a lot of those left over too, a lot!

catching up

It doesn't take much to fall behind around here. 2 weekends away and a weekend hosting in-laws and my over-ambitious schedule for Fall is pretty much shot. It's all rainy and dark today and what I really want to do is watch some crap daytime tv and maybe knit a little hat for Maggie. But I should push through the lazy and get this train back on track. I've got some fun wip's to finish and then some stuff from my travels to show, including new vintage kids books, a mountain of cast off buttons and a new Country Craft magazine from the Japanese book store that had some cute this's and that's to see including...

these cute piggies

and this adorable lion

Oh, and the Stitchettes are all out and on their way!

WIP Friday

on deck, the rest of the next set of make-a-long patterns...

and a little more of this action since our snow has melted and more fall-like temps are on the way.

I said brrrr... it's cold in here

Happy October 12th everybody!

This is making me feel extremely behind schedule. Still no Halloween costume for Oscar, haven't taken our Fall-ish Make-a-long pics yet, haven't mulled anything and it's snowing already! I've gotta go start working on ornaments or something.

Thanks so much for the Stitchette love!! I'm busy packing them all up and they should be to you soon. There are still sets up in the shop. I got a ton of them this time around so there wouldn't be so much "I missed out, reprint please" regret. Of course last time someone was blogging how unhappy they were that they didn't sell out fast enough. Hope no one is grumbling at me, "I set my alarm and they're still not sold out, hmpf". I always shoot for the pleasing all the people all of the time goal but it's a lofty one.

ok, time to get knitting. I'm going to make like Emily's latest painting and bundle myself up!

Fall Stitchettes Day

Today's Stitchette day and I'm collating like crazy. Sticking stickers, stuffing envelopes, printing instructions. wha? huh? who left this all til the last possible minute? cetainly not me.

Anyway, here's the skinny again. The limited edition of Fall Stitchettes go on sale today at 4:00 Chicago time in the shop. And for those of you who emailed me asking what the heck are Stitchettes. Good question! They are embroidery pattern sets with postcards of the designs, iron on transfers and instructions. The four designs are below.

I don't think I mentioned all their final names yet. I adjusted one of them because it occurred to me to not have repeats of letters in case some day I want to do an A-Z set. So Stan Studies is now Ernie's Edification. Much more fitting I think. And here he is with his girlfriend Hazel Hurrahs.

And here's Wilson Walks Walter with Bea's Backpack.

Ok, there they are! I'm very excited. The postcards turned out wonderful again and Tim made up the cutest stickers. Thanks for checking in, hope to see you at 4:00 :)

I'm working, really I am.

I am not farting around taking pictures of Tim's old Star Wars toys that his parents brought up for him.

No sir. Not trying to make the blinds look like Cloud City.

Not noticing that Oscar's new Radiator Springs car ramp looks a lot like Dagoba. Nope.

Maybe it's just research. Halloween is around the corner. Maybe Oscar needs another Star Wars themed costume.