Comments about ‘Quilting, $3.5 billion industry, seeing bolder colors, bling and recycled-bottle batting’

Another commercial industry trying to capitalize on the cottage businesses quality and hand made quilts. As always though, they will fail and pollute the market with substandard made in China trash. There are some things that commercialization industry should leave alone, and the making of grandma's quilts is one of them.

There needs to be a industry protection law to keep this commercial industry from capitalizing on individually hand made quilting which commercially produced products are usually never really the same in quality or construction. These commercial knockoffs should not be allowed to be marketed and made illegal because they are stealing the intellectual property of cottage industry makers. Just as others have rights to their products, cottage industry should have the same rights and protections.

To My@Cents: Everything can be capitalized on...that is the free market system on which our country was built. Nothing will ever compete with or replace one of Grandma's quilts. The new techniques, books, products, and fabrics are thrilling. I love the thought of this amazing craft being picked up by a younger age group so that this precious tradition doesn't go the way of the dinasaur but thrives. New ideas breath fresh insight, perspective, and ideas that help us think outside-the-box with stunning results. I have seen very pretty mass produced quilts for sale in the stores. I stop and look and appreciate...and walk on. We all have free will. Teaching our young children and grandchildren to appreciate what goes into an heirloom quilt is key. You cannot legislate a protection of a cottage industry. Put your time, talents, and creativity into something more worth while....like, another handmade heirloom quilt.

Sisln
I agree. The same with painting or any other art. Some one who really knows what they are looking for won't buy a mass produced one if the hand made one is available. The difference between some modernisation of some quilting techniques and and traditional is the same, buy what you want to value and ignore the other and teach others what is right and better, and why it is better.
I built my wife and daughters a sewing room just to do that.

To My@Cents: You obviously have never been to Quilt Market. The people who attend Quilt Market are there to learn how to better teach thousands of people HOW TO QUILT, meaning they are teaching future generations to preserve the American quilting tradition. I didn't grow up with a mother or a grandmother who quilted; I am lucky that quilt shops, quilt-book publishers, fabric companies, and quilt-tool manufacturers all congregate at this trade show to share ideas and products. Otherwise I would never have become a lifelong quilter with a great passion for the craft. Quilt shops remain independent, "cottage" businesses that are fighting to survive against the chains, and giants like WalMart. I assure you, WalMart does NOT attend Quilt Market. And as far as handmade quilts go, check the numbers. No one is willing to pay what a finished handmade quilt is worth. So most choose to make quilts themselves. Why would you ever poo-poo an industry that encourages people to make quilts by their own hand? At least then they wouldn't be, as you so ingnorantly proclaim, "made in China."