{aka Great Minds Think Alike aka how Pinterest and Flickr can be self-confidence thieves}
(this pic from early 2008 is completely irrelevant to the post - I just love it - it was the promotions board outside the local shop at the end of our street in Rarotonga - and well, the choices are just so very Cookie. How do you like your doughnuts?)
I adore Pinterest and Flickr for their vast and ever-changing inspiration for, well, any creative endavour you could imagine, really. I love that I pop in a few keywords, and kapow - instant inspiration on tap! Of course, I am also slightly impressed by the sheer time suckage power that these sites have, for me at least!
Sometimes though, (and this happens both when I am actively searching for something for a particular project, or randomly Alice in Wonderlanding through all the eye candy - see *time suckage* above, ha!) the sheer volume of inspiration can be overwhelming, to the point where I lose the enthusiasm to make something because *it's all been done before*, or I am simply so overwhelmend with ideas my mind can't settle long enough to decide on one. (Rachel from Stitched in Color wrote very eloquently about this earlier this year - and her post's message has stuck with me)
And sometimes, in the midst of all this glorious imagery, you stumble upon something that is uncannily like the idea that's been percolating away on your noggin for an *original* design...already stitched by someone else. That's where things tend to get a bit shifty for me - obviously the idea I thought was the product of my imagination, has germinated in someone else's noggin too (which is really very cool if you think about it - great minds think alike and all that) but I confess it does tend to cool my enthusiasm for some of those intended projects - not so much the *someone else has already thought of it* aspect (because that is bound to happen), but because of concerns of accusations or the perception of plagiarism, even if it is a completely random or accidental development of a design by 2 separate people in a remarkably similar fashion. Sad but true - I'd simply rather not make a particular quilt (or not share it here, at any rate) than open myself up to that sort of criticism and confrontation - as I've seen those bombs explode elsewhere online and well, this is my happy place!
So, on the back of all this, you can imagine my surprise just a day or so ago - I was hunting through Flickr, hoping for inspiration to hit on how to use my Soul Blossoms collection (I have been hoarding it, and it is starting its siren call, begging to be used - does your fabric do this?)...when I happened to stumble upon this beauty - look familiar? The resemblance between this lovely quilt by Hideaway Girl and my Like a Record Baby quilt is pretty uncanny, right? Now, Hideaway Girl made her quilt nearly a full year ago, and I haven't seen it before now, and yet I still got antsy when I saw it, worrying that there would be this perception that I had taken her idea and made it my own, without attribution etc.
{And here we should pause for a moment to acknowledge that a. yes, I do think (and worry!) entirely too much; and b. a worrywort quilter who is also an ex-copyright law lecturer is just a combination that is not going to end well, ha! There's probably good reason for a third point as well so c. yes, I must not hang out inside my own head ofr extended periods of time - no good will come of this!!!}
That said, thankfully, I'd already shared the photos of my quilt before discovering Hideaway Girl's, so part of the mental tug-of-war was irrelevant since it was already out there, phew! And there are some definite differences - though gosh I love the sense of decadance that she has created by pairing Soul Blossoms and a dark grey!
And the really crazy thing? When I was first formulating the idea of the LARB quilt, I was seriously considering using my Soul Blossoms and a darker neutral - how freaky would that have been?!?! At the end of the day though I went with the Remix jelly roll simply because it was a jelly roll and so already cut, and laziness should always be rewarded, ha!
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