Exchanges and A Present!

Sonya (sonictomb) took a picture of the seasonal exchange peice I sent her so I downloaded it. I really appreciate her taking the picture because I totally forgot. I was in such a rush to get it in the mail as it was 1 day late that taking a picture never crossed my mind until it was too late. LOL I am so glad she liked it :)

This is my package for the Freebie Exchange on the WOCS yahoo group. This is being sent to Julia. I really hope she likes it. She loves angels so I chose a Teresa Wentlzer freebie called Jeanne Love's Angel. I included both aida fabric and 28ct hand-dyed jobelen. As this chart does not have any over 1 sections and very few half stitches it will work on Aida fabric but I included the 28ct jobelen in case Julia would like to try over 2 stitching. It is late due to my stupid broken toes but I hope Julia likes it when she gets it.


This is the lovely package I received from Barb on the WOCS yahoo group's Freebie Exchange. This is a Count Your Blessings, Inc design called "Love Begins At Home #5". She included a wonderful card, aida fabric, DMC floss and needles. I am really looking forward to stitching this. Thank you so much Barb, I love it!

A few weeks ago I notified The Silver Lining (among about 10 other companies) when I came accross a web site that was violating copyright by posting full charts. Marc Saastad was very grateful and wanted to send me a free chart to show his appreciation. I was hesitant to accept it because I did not do it in the hopes of getting free items. this is the chart that Mr. Saastad sent me. It has the most gorgeous purple colors in it and I am looking forward to stitching it. Thank you very much for your generosity Mr. Saastad, I do appreciate it!

I notified the designers because, as a writer, I know a lot of work goes into creating anything and I believe that creating a cross stitch chart has to take time, effort and a great deal of creativity. I believe that the creator should be compensated for their work through people purchasing the charts that the creator offers for sale. I do not agree with copyright infringement. That is why I notified as many of the companies as I could find when I came accross the site that had literaly hundreds of designs posted in violation of copyright laws. It really bothered me to see a site that had designs posted that came from so many different companies. I did not hear back from every designer that I contacted, but I did hear back from some of them. They were all grateful to be informed of the copyright infringement and I am glad that I could help them in this way. I did get a few emails from some of the people that contributed to that site (it was a posting board in a different language where members could post charts) who were very angry with me. I explained to them that they should think of it this way: "Stitching an item takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of the stitcher. We put a lot of work, emotion, and good thoughts into every stitch. The same amount of effort, emotion, thought and time goes into the creation of the chart by the designer as goes into the stitching of the finished project by the stitcher. Just as a stitcher would not appreciate having their stitching presented as someone else's work (basically a lie), a designer would not appreciate having all their effort stolen. The more people who ignore copyright laws and undermine a designer's work in this manner, the more they harm the needlework industry as a whole. Eventually designers will be unable to create and offer new charts as they can't support their families by doing so. The more copyright infringement that occurs, the fewer more design companies will lose money resulting in fewer design companies at all." I was not surprised that many of those who contacted me refused to understand the concept, but I was surprised that one of them realized their error and said that they had not thought of it that way before and appreciated my taking the time to explain it in that manner. Whether or not she meant it, I do not know, but the idea that I may have helped one person to see how copyright infringement undermines the designer (and the entire needlework industry) and thus change their mind/opinion about engaging in infringement makes me feel good.