https://www.ustrendygear.com/products/gorgeous-dragonfly-blanket-t69?variant=12253647568983

Is this my quilt, Dancing in the Light?

Looks like it, doesn’t it?

Surprise! It’s a fuzzy blanket TrendyGear.us decided to print for sale. I am still sitting here with my head between my knees.

In a way, it probably means I’ve arrived. I’m finally valuable enough to copy. The piece itself resides in the permanent collection of the National Quilt Museum. That would have been honor enough.

But in the days of digital reproduction, all it takes is a good photo.

For those of us who have sort of aged out of the quilt world, it seems very weird to be looking at my best-known work as an object of theft. My health as of late has precluded travel and teaching. I’ve been working on other less aerobic things. I got married. I work on books and writing lately.

But this is the culmination of 35 years of professional quilting. A magnum opus as it were. To be put on a blanket and sold for $49.00.

As I understand it, this is China in the big bad west. No rules, no help. There was some suggestion that the whole site was a scam and that the blankets themselves don’t really exist.

I doubt very much there’s any recourse.  I almost want to order one to see how bad it is. Then again, I can hardly think of being scammed twice.

All art is derivative. We copy to learn. I’ve always been broad-minded about it around students because I chose to teach. If you choose to teach, you choose to share what you do, and that includes copying technique and to some extent subject matter. I’ve seen hundreds of quilts with a heron on it similar to the cover of Thread Magic. My work has always defended itself, in its complexity.  Until someone decided to print it onto a blanket.

I’m curious as to how others have handled this. I don’t often ask for advice or guidance, but this time I have no idea what do to next once I’m done praying to the porcelain goddess. Anyone with words of wisdom? What do you think?