It Has Always Amazed Me…….
Why so many people want free patterns, in the handcrafted arts industry.
If you are a designer, a budding designer, or are planning on going down that path, why would you want someone else’s patterns???
The true essence of a real designer is someone who comes up with something original, on their own. This person looks at something, be it a piece of antique jewelry, be it a cloud pattern in the sky, be it wildflowers in the field, and their creativity kicks in. The image is sketched, the pattern planned out, and the item is created.
Mind you never all in one shot!! That would be too easy, to be able to make a creation the right way the first time!!! How many false starts have we all had, only to take something apart, rip the stitchery out, unstring the jewelry, and start all over again?
Not that I have anything against giving some advice, a bit of encouragement, and all that good stuff. Not at all. But free patterns??? I don’t think so. That’s my creativity, my ideas made real. I’ve never copied another designer in my life, and don’t ever intend to.
It’s not my gig in life to recreate the wheel, which essentially is what the whole free pattern thing is. You take someone’s pattern, idea, etc., copy it, change it a little to make it your own, and wa-la! you are a designer. WRONG.
Of course, I understand the whole trust thing too. Why would you buy a pattern from someone without the trust factor having been established? Valid point. However, why do you go to the craft store, or shop online for a pattern book, and buy that pattern book? Why did you just pay that person for their patterns?? Do you know them? Most likely not. You bought the pattern book because you liked the pictures, saw the possibilities for yourself to either learn or advance your technique, read some of the instructions and said “hey, they are something I can do”, and you purchased the book.
Did you email the author and ask for a freebie? Of course not.
Which, before this turns into some kind of rant, brings me back to my original pondering. FREE is nice, FREE is good, however you need to remember nothing in life is really free.
To be a real, true and good designer, you need to always utilize your own creativity and ideas. Think you are not a creative person? Guess again. Look around you, without actually looking for “ideas” and before you realize it, you will have found “inspiration”.
Inspiration is the seed of creativity. Take that inspiration, be it for a color combo, form, design, comfort, eye catching glimmer……. and let the inner you run with it. Who is the inner you??? We all have the “inner you”! That’s our soul, the essence of each of us. That “inner you”, if you let it, will take you to new, uncharted, exciting, sometimes scary new heights, a good kind of scary, where the inner you takes the inspiration and runs with it as a child does in a field with their kite.
Want to see how high you can soar? Want to see your own, original, wonderful creativity come alive? Run in the field with that kite. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Take your own ideas, water those seeds, and watch them grow.
