Stars For a New Day BOM
 

I joined the Board today because of a BOM I'm getting through the mail - they send me a fabric kit & pattern each month. I am REALLY struggling with it and I was hoping someone else on the Board might be participating as well. The name of the BOM is in the subject line. Since I'm new, I don't have a feel for how much information I should give so, for the moment, less is more as I try not to over-step.

It isn't that the piecing is difficult; it's the cutting mistakes in the monthly kits, the communication from the shop, and the readability (or lack of) in the copy of the pattern. I'm not here to blast the shop or the pattern designer. I really want to know if I'm crazy to be so disappointed with the program or if my expectations were too high.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Wow, that is a beautiful quilt! There was a discussion of this pattern before - http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...e-t121108.html

I haven't read the entire discussion (above). Hope that helps.

Thanks. I read some of that thread the other day - before I joined today - when I was looking for help with this. As it happens, I emailed Sue directly from her blog and she could not have been nicer. She said the covers for each month's pattern should be in color, but ultimately that was up to the distributor. I don't know if she meant the shop doing the BOM or the pattern publisher. What I get is a color image that has been copied in black & white and it's very hard to tell which color goes where. We're making four star blocks per month with a variety of colors and I'm just not confident I'm going to end up with the dazzling quilt I have in my mind.

I do think you have a right to get a clear pattern. If I understand correctly, it is the quality of the copying that is the problem, not the quality of the instructions? And also the fabric isn't cut correctly? I would complain to the shop doing the BOM and see what they have to say. Also be sure that Sue Garman knows that her pattern is being distributed in that way; perhaps she can do something about it. It doesn't speak well for her or for the shop doing the distribution.

I had a bad experience with a BOM that I got directly from a designer so I am now leary of them because of my experience. I would like to know what are reputable online sites for BOM that are consistent. I still haven't finished mine from the designer and only have 4 months of it. still need the other 8 months but need a new distributor because the designer is not very dependable

The shop has blamed it on the cutting instructions they received from the pattern company. They are giving us the right size pieces, but not all the fabric for the items being constructed that month. For example, in month 2, the fabric for the floating border around the center medallion wasn't in the package. In month 3, we were to supposed to receive 18 different fabrics for the pinwheel border, but there were only 14 in the package. In month 4, we received the additional fabric for the pinwheels plus additional fabric for the 4-patch border constructed in month 2.

I knew there was a problem with the pinwheels, but I was unaware of the 4-patch problem and didn't know that fabric was coming because the email from the shop wasn't specific. These errors seem like they'd be pretty easy to spot while kitting the fabric if only someone checked it against the pattern being sent. I suspect the problem is really at the shop, but I have no way of knowing.

Thanks for your suggestion to let Sue know. I wasn't quite sure where I should be pushing this, but you're right ... she should know.

As for the pattern, I think I will contact the distributor directly to see if a black & white pattern on typical copy paper is the quality we should be receiving.

I'm wondering about the quality of the pattern. It almost sounds like someone is making photocopies of photocopies, and if that's the case, Sue should know. It's illegal for a shop to purchase one pattern and make several copies to sell with a kit, unless they have her permission. I certainly hope that's not what's happening in this case.

I started wondering about the legality of the pattern after my last post. It contains printing instructions to make sure everything scales properly - check the size of the one inch box. This pattern was originally a BOM on The Quilt Show so I'd expect a print / scale check to be in something people are downloading. That sure makes me wonder if they're using a legitimate license to print copies for their program participants. I did email the distributor earlier this evening so I'll make a note to address this with them, too. Thanks for the input.

As a pattern designer myself, the first thought that came to my mind was that Sue meant the "distributor" is the company who sells the patterns to the quilt shop.

It sounds suspiciously to me like the pattern you described was copied from one of Sue's patterns that the shop bought from a distributor (or got from another source), and then -- wanting to keep her (the shop owner's) costs down -- she copied the pattern, put it in an envelope/baggie and sold it to you/her customers as being directly from Sue's company....a HUGE copyright infringement.:thumbdown: That is IF this is what actually happened.

Sue probably knows who her distributors are. Maybe she will want to learn if her distributor has sold patterns to this particular shop. She may even want to find out from the shop itself if they are indeed selling prepackaged patterns or are repackaging them themselves. She does have the right to this information if there is an infringement, and she can prove it.

Jan in VA

Interesting. I wasn't immediately suspicious of the pattern being a photocopy because that's what I've received for BOMs at my local quilt shop, a place where I know the owner honors copyrights and follows the rules. I am completely willing to follow up on this with Sue or the distributor named on the front page of the pattern. Could you give me a little direction on how to go about that? I would not like to falsely accuse the shop of infringement. Thanks for your help.

Wow, that shop sounds pretty shakey to me. I have done BOM at my fav lqs, and never had a problem. But a friend who did one at another shop in town had to nag the owner for fabric that was missing, pattern pages missing, etc. I think it sounds like your lqs is making their own copies and just being sloppy about the fabric. So sorry for this bad expericence, a BOM can be a great way to learn and finish a big quilt, don't let this turn you off.

I did get some photocopied instructions for one of my BOM, but I think that was the plan for the distributor because it was only a buck a block so I would think costs would be kept to a minimum.

I want to be clear. This BOM is NOT from my lqs. This is something I saw online and that has been coming to me in the mail. My local store closed last December so I've been doing more shopping online. I saw this quilt, thought it was beautiful, signed up, and the experience has been downhill from there.

As for the BOMs that I did at my local store, by photocopy, I mean a couple of letter-sized sheets with the instructions, not that someone took a regular pattern and made some lame copy of it. The number of times I heard the owner explain copyright to people and why they couldn't share patterns make me certain she had permission to provide copies to everyone doing the BOMs at her store. I've done some other projects through the mail, like the Patchwork Party events that use Marti Michell templates and patterns, and those have been the same - a couple letter-sized pages of instructions.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the shop doing this BOM is offering it online. Would anyone really be so foolish to violate copyright when it would be so easy for the pattern designer or the distributor to find out?

Yes, because some people simply don't see a problem with it. They think once they buy one copy, they own it and can do whatever they wish with it. I have heard more than one horror story from a designer who could not get copyright infringement through a thick head....

Wow, just wow. I've seen that attitude / ignorance in individual customers, but a shop not understanding the importance of protecting intellectual property??? Again, wow.

And things are great over here in Naive-ville. Thanks for asking. ;)

I wouldn't call you naive, I'd call you a decent human bean who is so honest it doesn't even occur to you that people could do such things. :thumbup:

I recently received an email from the designer of a BOM I did at my lqs who was asking for help with a similar issue. The quilt from that BOM was featured in the ad campaign for a longarm manufacturer - it was the quilt on the frame in the pictures showing their product. Fons & Porter were in the picture, and identified, too, getting ready to quilt it, but no mention of the designer or the pattern name. The designer also said that neither the long arm manufacturer nor the ad agency asked permission to use her design in the photo and her efforts to get some acknowledgement have resulted in bupkus. I was amazed at that, too.

But there are decent people out there, too. I took a class at my lqs using a pattern from a book that was out of print. The teacher contacted the author and received permission to copy the pattern for the students in the class. We paid some nominal amount for it, probably $5, to cover the royalty to the author and the cost of the color copies. Sure, there was some effort involved, but it only made me respect the shop and the teacher that much more.

That's very sweet of you to say. There are a LOT of things that don't occur to me, but you know what, life is just easier that way. I don't have to waste time covering my tracks.

Have you spoken with the shop owner/manager? I have had great luck with BOMs online and at my lqs. This lastest BOM I am doing is from a new online shop I just found and the first three months have had cutting errors and the last one was missing the instructions. I finally, after several calls, spoke with the owner who was quite disappointed to hear about the mistakes as well as how her staff were handling those mistakes. I am now very happy with the shipment for the fourth month and hope to not have future errors. I would suggest insisting on speaking with the owner/manager, if you haven't already.

I have emailed the shop. I think they are sick of me and I think they are a bunch of ding dongs.

The latest - one of the owners offered to send me the next month at no charge. The staffperson doing the mailing took that to mean that I shouldn't be charged for shipping.

Anyway, the owner's response to that was "Murphy's Law" and offered to sell me the remaining patterns at a discount and drop me from the program. I don't see how that really helps me since I'll be stuck with a top I can't finish - the fabric selections are theirs, not a particular line of fabric that is the same from shop to shop.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this. I was trying to get a sense for how typical my experience has been. Mistakes happen. I can deal with that. I've been more troubled by what has felt like the shop not doing what would best serve their customers.

Now that I've seen your reactions to this, I have doubts about the licensing of the pattern and I will follow up with the distributor. In this regard, I will be the Quilt Police. ;)

I am not out to "get" the shop, but it's good to know that the things that were setting off the alarm bells in my head aren't trivial.

I'm glad you posted this - it is a good learning experience for all of us. Sorry that you are having problems though. Please keep us informed.

I have only done BOM's through a local quilt store and they have always been helpful. But, I learned the hard way that on the more intricate patterns if you make one cutting mistake there won't be enough fabric! Especially bad if I wait until the last minute to do it! The LQS has always been good about selling me a scrap for like a quarter - just enough to correct the problem.

What I started doing was going through my stash and using up scraps and making a practice block first. Really helps to understand. Even had enough to make a quilt for the kids playroom - which is now my playroom (quilting) since they are now grown.

One thing also that my LQS does is make the quilt ahead of time so you can see how it looks. Also insures they have read the pattern and it's doable.

Know what you should do? You should check out the BOM's that are going on here. I have never participated but have enjoyed looking at the pictures and have also noticed that someone is always willing to talk a problem through.

It would also give you a chance to interact with other members and share ideas.

It is a beautiful quilt. Maybe you can contact Sue and she can send you a colored copy.

I have definitely learned to buy the boo-boo bundle for projects I find online when one is offered.

Early in this BOM, I emailed the shop asking for a picture of their shop sample - no response. They have about 50 BOMs going - seriously; I'm not exaggerating - so I guess they don't do a sample for every one.

Sue did paste color photos of the blocks in her email to me. Once she did that, I realized I would never have gotten the star blocks together correctly. That's when I started this thread. I hoped to find someone else doing this BOM so we could compare experiences.

My thoughts exactly! I really respect you for being so diligent about this. I don't think I would have been so "understanding". How far into this BOM are you?

Well, I don't know if I have been that understanding. I am well and truly annoyed with the shop, but if I had just posted a rant about them, I think I'd have just triggered a lot of venting from other users. Therapeutic at times, but not helpful to me in this situation.

It's a twelve month BOM and they just shipped month five. Within that short time frame, I have gone from very excited to do this program to no interest in working on it and no anticipation for receiving the next kit. It's still a beautiful quilt, but I very much regret signing up with this shop.

I have a new lqs that opened shortly before the other one closed and I discussed a lot of this with the owner. She has been a small businesswoman for years and I wanted to get the perspective from the other side of all this. She was taken aback by their behavior and had even stronger suggestions about what to do.

I am looking forward to hearing from the distributor. If it turns out they are violating copyright, I won't be too shy about condemning the rest of their behavior. Thanks everyone for your support. I will let you know what happens.

I just got off the phone with the distributor and the shop does have permission to send out the patterns. The distributor was glad I called and, I think, took away some good ideas for dealing with these poor copies going forward.

As I think I mentioned previously, the quilt was originally done as a BOM on The Quilt Show. Participants at that time were downloading the files and printing them, in color, using their own resources. When the pattern was converted to the current format, Sue took out the references to TQS, but no one thought about removing the instructions to check the scale on your printer. The distributor is going to pass that along to Sue for correction.

They're also now thinking about developing a color key or other more detailed instructions to help those of us struggling to figure out the color placement on the grayscale copy.

I was one that downloaded the patterns from the Quilt show when it was a BOM. I confess that I have not finished it as of yet. I think I have completed all of the pinwheel blocks and then got side tracked into something else. of course I used my own fabrics so I would not have the confusion you had about which colors go where.

Well, I don't know where I'm going from here. The shop has dropped me from the program - I get the impression they think this was very big of them because they have a no cancellation policy. They have offered to sell me the patterns for the remaining months at their cost plus shipping and the large floral fabric, again, at their cost plus shipping.

I forwarded the last email I received from them to Sue and to the pattern distributor, Quakertown Quilts. I don't expect there's anything they can or will do, but I thought they should know what has been going on.

At this point, I have everything through the pinwheel border. I could probably stop there and turn it into a table topper. <sigh> No one in my quilt-y group is going near that shop again. Since our local shop closed, we had been hoping to find a BOM to do together and we had been looking at Homestead Hearth because they have so many programs going. They're off our list of possibilities now - big surprise. :p

I am so sorry to hear about your problems. I got a kit once from Homestead Hearth that had been gathered as a BOM. There was only one tiny error and it was fixed in the subsequent month. With the hundreds of pieces and parts to this kit, I was amazed at how well the kits were set up. Every single piece of fabric, no matter how small, had a label with all the info on it. I had zero problems with the complex Lori Smith pattern also.

I have also gotten fantastic service from the Fat Quarter Shop and their designer BOM. I bought a BOM kit several years later, from a quilter who never started it, and it was missing a pattern. They sent me a PDF of the pattern within 48 hours of my email. Great service and nice people. Plus I love the fabric.

I would also suspect that Stitchin Heaven would have good service since they run a huge BOM program.

I can confirm that every piece of fabric I received was labeled, and if I had received all the fabric I needed each month, I probably would have recovered from the bad start to the program. A sampling of the issues ...

Monthly kits were missing fabrics. The pattern distributor confirmed that the cutting instructions were at fault. I can deal with mistakes - they happen. I didn't like waiting six weeks for the missing fabric to arrive. They elected to send the missing pieces with the next month's kit and then inexplicably delayed sending that kit for two weeks. And oh, by the way, adding the missing fabrics to that month's kit put it over some weight limit so it had to come priority mail. Yeah, it's just a couple of bucks, but the message of that bothered me - hey, you get to pay for the privilege of receiving your fabrics late.

The program was repeatedly delayed with little to no communication from the shop. It was supposed to start November 2011. We got an email that there was a problem with the fabric - a delay from the supplier - and they would ship an "alternate" beginning in December. They did not do that and there was no communication from them about the program until the first kit showed up in May 2012.

That's the way the whole thing has been - a very strong feeling of "get in line; we've got something else to do while you wait."

Yuck.