Privacy

Today's rant is about privacy. I read a story on Yahoo today that just flabbergasted me. My comments about it may irritate you. I'd love to hear your opinions on it, agree or disagree.

The title of the news article was "Mo. family Christmas photo turns up in Czech ad". I bet you have read it. The gist of it was that this family posted a Christmas card picture of themselves on the mother's blog and on social networking sites, and then seemed amazed that it showed up somewhere not under their control. The fact that it showed up on a Prague storefront adds an amusing twist to the tale but doesn't really contribute to understanding the true moral of the story, as far as I'm concerned. OK, on the face of it, this seems like a disturbing thing. "Your pictures could turn up anywhere! Anyone could use them for any purpose!" Then I visited the mother's website and blog and lost all sympathy.

The site and blog are chock full of photos of her, her children and her life. It's her shtick. It's her business. Look for yourself. Heck, her link was in the Yahoo story. She's already so publicly exposed that one picture in a window in the Czech Republic is nothing.

This is the comment I left:

"My solution to the photo issue is that I never, never use a photo in my blog that shows recognizable people, and I don't put them in Flickr either. If it's an identifiable image, it stays in my external drive on my desk. With the capabilities available for digital photo restoration, I don't think watermarking or lowered resolution is enough - I have seen my husband's old family photo restoration efforts, and even as an amateur it's amazing what he can do. Good luck to anyone if they want to use a photo from my blog - all they'll find are boring snaps of my garden and my hobbies. I also never use any identifying information on my blog, names nor locations.

Moral of the story? If you want privacy, it's your responsibility to see that it happens. Don't put anything out there that you don't want grabbed up out of your control. If you want family to have pictures, mail them a copy. It's unlikely if you send a paper copy to Aunt Maude, it will be hijacked for commercial use.

Am a a grouch? Maybe. Paranoid? Possibly some would think so. But I know that privacy is a slippery slope. I especially wouldn't spread pictures of my kids around on the internet. I'm glad this turned out well for you, but there are dangers here."

Well.

About now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking I'm an idiot. I just know that I have boundaries I don't want to cross. Unlike a lot of people in the world, you can't even Google me (if you know my name) and find anything. Oh, someone with my name is out there, but it's not me. To the Web world, I want to stay "The Calico Quilter", no face attached. I have told my name to some bloggers in emails, but it's rare. I developed an opinion that they were trustworthy from my exchanges with them.

If I had children, I would never leak out any information about them online. If family wanted pictures, I would print and mail them. I know that many of you post pictures of children/grandchildren on your blogs. Many people do. I just don't think I could.

As I said, privacy is a slippery slope.

One step at a time

I've cut out my version of "In Lucinda's Garden" and have started sewing while my husband and his friend watch depressing movies. Since the thing I hate most in the sewing world is assembling flying geese units, that's what I'm tackling first. If I get that out of the way, everything else is a walk in the park. There's 224 of the things, 1 1/2" x 3" finished size. I've knocked out 80 so far. I don't use any of the fancy assembly techniques - just a rectangle, two squares, sew on the diagonal line. I don't feel guilty cutting off the corners and throwing them away on such small units. If they are larger, I try to make HST's out of them. Besides, this is a stash-buster. I've looked at some of this fabric for far too long. I want it gone!

To make this truly scrappy, I pulled out 23 light fabrics and 23 darks for the flying geese, and sorted out the pairings before commencing sewing so that I don't have any duplicate light/dark combinations. The pattern in the magazine just called for 7 lights and 6 darks. I think mine will be more visually interesting. Or at least I hope so.

In Lucinda's Garden

There's a pattern in a past issue of Fons' and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine called "In Lucinda's Garden". It is constructed around a printed faux applique panel reproducing images from a famous applique quilt called the Reconciliation Quilt. After staring at the pattern a few days I decided to make it, but I had trouble finding the fabrics locally and in the usual web stores I frequent. I did find the printed "applique" panel on Ebay, though.

I put the panel and the pattern away and didn't think about it for a while as I completed other projects. Then, last night as a rummaged through the storage drawer in my bookcase where I keep partially finished projects, I came upon the panel again and started thinking. Serendipitously, the same evening I got an email from Fons's and Porter's magazine webstore and they had a kit for the quilt, on sale no less. I was about to break down and buy the kit but was rescued by the fact that their checkout process was malfunctioning and would not include the discount coupon for the sale price. I shot off an email to their customer support line about the problem and left it at that.

A little later, I started thinking about what was in my stash, and whether I could mimic the look of the quilt using only fabric already in the house. I already had the panel, after all. So into the closet I went, pulling boxes and comparing colors. There's a work table in that room where the cat's bed (actually a cube) sits; someone using that table makes her irritated. You should have seen the looks she gave me as piles of fabrics grew around her doorway.

So, I moved to the floor, laying the panel in the center of an arrangement of possible selections, neutrals on one side, darks on the other, highlighted fabrics on the third. Finally, I had come up with a possible group of fabrics that would give the look of the quilt, if not the exact replication of it. On second thought this morning I need to pull a few more yellows, but I'm almost there.

To think that I almost bought another kit to add to my burgeoning closet. Another stash-buster. Yay!

You know you're old when. . .

Something Tanya said in this blog reminded me of a funny remark my Mom made last year while my brother and I were talking about our annuity/pension checks. She remarked that since all her children were retired, she must really be old. She was 85 at the time. I thought something else might have tipped her off earlier!

Christmas Lights Mystery Quilt, part 1

Does anyone have any guesses? Nope, me neither.

What a way to wake up!

I just got shook out of bed by the sound of a commercial chipper/shredder running on my neighbor's driveway - which, for the record, is on the other side of my fence, 25 feet from my bedroom window - my single-pane, non-noise-blocking bedroom window!

8 o'clock on a Saturday morning. It was closest to my house, but I doubt I'm the only one it woke up.

I had slept really badly and been up several times during the night, so after I fed the cat at 7 a.m. I decided to slip back into bed for a little more rest.

Well, no.

Oh, great, now there's chain saws too. They're cutting down a huge pine tree next door. I'll have to listen to this all day. Whine.

Count me in

I decided to bite and sign on for the Bonnie Hunter "Christmas Lights" mystery quilt. All the fabric is from my stash. It won't cost me any money, but time. . .that's another story. I just finished cutting out 250 2"x2" squares. And I've still got a lot more cutting to do. They very helpfully put the entire cut list in the first installment, which I appreciate. Better to get it over with at the start, so you can see the combination of fabrics, even though you don't know the design yet.

I even had a Christmas print for the largest border. Here's hoping I like the finished design!

Thanks to Quiltmaker magazine's website for the Christmas Lights logo.