The Rest of the Stories

I guess I had never written the final chapters on a couple of things that happened during the last few months of 2009 because I’ve had several emails asking me, “Whatever happened with…?”  So…

The rest of the stories.

Remember my dream house which I wrote about here?

Just last week we received a call from our realtor to tell us that the house had finally sold…but not to us.  Sigh.

After much deliberation and number crunching, Mr. Painted Quilt and I decided to let our dream remain just that…a dream.  The final nail in the proverbial coffin occurred when we found out that the listing agent inadvertently forgot to tell us about the “extra” $600-$800 yearly  heating cost for propane.  The two original fireplaces in the house had been converted to propane a while back and the costs would be reflected in the frequency of use, determined by the severity of the winter months.  This additional cost put the monthly carrying charges for the house over the top for us.

So the final chapter on this particular dream house has been written.  I now have a sense of closure and can put the dream to rest.  The End.

Then there was the story of a copyright violation which I wrote about here.

If you recall, I saw this in the advertising sales part of the Country Sampler magazine.

The flag pictured in the center was painted by an artist who stole portions of three of my original paintings, changed the elements around a bit, painted his/her version and then sold the design to a licensing company.  Several of the design elements including the line drawings appeared in this volume of one my published decorating painting books below.  The decorative design that I painted on the crock was something that |made up and even this was copied.

I forwarded a copy of my original blog post along with a letter of explanation to the editor of Country Sampler magazine.  They responded almost immediately to advise me that they would be contacting the company that was selling the flags to tell them that they would have to change the advertising photo as they would not be running that particular ad again because of obvious copyright violations.  They gave me the contact information for the company as well.

At this point let me reiterate that I bear no malice to either Country Sampler or the company that manufactured the flag for reasons that I spoke about in my original post.  I decided that I would seek advice from our attorney before proceeding.  

My worse fears were answered at that meeting.  He advised us that unless we were willing to spend thousands of dollars to pursue the matter, we would be wise to drop it and chalk it up to experience.  Even a “Cease and Desist” order would cost piles of money to execute and the little or no remuneration that might be recovered would not even put a dent in our costs.  Sigh.

Hopefully the manufacturer will go after the fraudulent artist because yes, they can still sell the remaining stock on hand hoping that I won’t sue them but they cannot use the flag in any of their promotional advertising either which will ultimately affect sales.  If and when this happens, then justice in my mind will have been served.  I have also been able to put this issue to bed.  The End.

I have been very busy in the studio as well although I have nothing that I can show you…yet. 

Just last night I finished working on my February FFF (First Friday Freebie) but of course you can’t see that until February 5th  and March’s project is almost done.  I also started the design for March this morning and that’s progressing well.

In December I designed a quilt that I completed last week and it is now in the capable hands  of my friend Nancy, longarm quilter extraordinaire, who will be casting her magic spell over it.  I’m hoping to have it back by the end of the month at which time I’ll decide what I’m going to do with the design.  I’ve got a couple of ideas in mind but won’t make the final decision until I get it back.

Thanks for stopping by and as always…

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥