Originally Posted by RST
I love it when a fairly young quilter informs me that they invented a variation on the most basic of nine patches and are going to get it copyrighted.
Sigh.
I also find it kind of strange and presumptuous when someone assumes that any quilt with some similarity in color use or design is copied or even "inspired by" their own. I made a circle motif quilt, completely of my own design, just playing around with the fabric and doing improvizations. A quilt guild member was abasolutely convinced that I copied her favorite blogger -- someone I never heard of and certainly did not copy. Probably we both were subtly influenced by images and styles we've seen in commercial products or current styles, or the fabrics themselves. Similarity in the end results does not necesarily mean that there was any copying going on.
RST
Well said!
And even if there were "copying," so what? How many Irish Chain, Grandmother's Garden, or Tumbling Block quilts, for example, are around? How about something more recent, like watercolor or stained glass techniques?
Good grief! If someone is so concerned that another may make/have an item that is similar, then keep all one's ideas in one's head, and if one should make them up, then never let them see the light of day.
Taken to the extreme, we are ALL copying something we have seen before.