Originally Posted by
SueSew
Julie, do you quilt commercially? If so, do you have other sources to purchase fabric than through retail resellers? Depending on your scale, perhaps you could buy wholesale and possibly make limited license agreements at purchase time in order to use special fabrics.
When you compare to a DVD, which you could copy and resell as opposed to a fabric which becomes part of a manufacturing process - there must be some legal language not to 'use' the fabric in a garment or quilt or whatever, as opposed to buying bulk fabric bolts and reselling them on eBay or at flea markets etc.
As I said earlier in the thread, no, I do not quilt commercially and I would be extremely surprised to hear that most quilters do.
Let's not act as thought the fabric were incidental to the finished quilt - it isn't. We create or choose patterns and fabrics with purpose; the perfect fabric greatly enhances the project and the wrong one is just...wrong. If a person is planning to sell a project, the fabric choice is a significant factor in how much money the project can make. The designers who create those fabric designs do so with the good faith understanding that we will use them for personal use, and not to make money. If the designer is also selling quilts or patterns using these particular fabrics you are competing directly with the designer, who should be able to reap a percentage of your share in the marketplace for having provided you with an eye-catching design.
Besides, if I were going to quilt commercially there is no way I'd pay retail; that's insanity. I would have no problem contacting the designer / license holder for information on how I can use the fabric I want, for agreed-upon purposes, and at a negotiated price. Any small business owner should know to do this, no matter what she's selling.