More February musings on my mind

Thinking all day (which is a scarey thing for me to do) as we do when we are in the phases of the moon (not the Phases of the Moose which is a bead embroidery piece of mine) , I realized that when I was a beginner beader, I wanted it all, but there wasn't much all on the internet.

It was 1996, and the internet was really beginning to take shape.  I wanted patterns for everything that I saw, and when I did find one, I printed it and put it in a folder.  After a while, I became friends with beaders who had a little more income than I did and they bought pattern books - O.M.G.  Books?  With beading patterns.  And they let me make copies.  Wow - could life be much better?  Free beading patterns and copyright be damned.

Fast forward many, many years as I was clearing out the closet in my studio of items that I haven't touched in a long, long, long time.  I ran across a stack of those patterns.  From many of the names that I now recognize and count amongst my friends.  Shameful behavior on my part.  One of the things I really noticed?  I made few, if any, of the pieces from these free/illegal patterns.  The few items that I did make, I went to the web page and spent my $7 to $20 and bought patterns.  Why after several years?  Because it's the right thing to do.

As I continue to clear out boxes, I toss the patterns in the recycle bin, shake my head and wonder what planet I was from.  Then I purchase patterns,  Yes, I still purchase patterns.  And books.  I buy books with patterns that I may never make.  Because now I want to support my friends and colleagues.  Who, someday, may support me.

Now, as I start on my teaching career with beads, I completely understand that what I did was incorrect.  Wrong.  WRONG.  Will it happen to me.  Of course it will. I'd be pretty naive to think that it wouldn't happen.  I will just hope that several years down the road, this unknown beader will have the same epithany that I did.  And buy my patterns.

Now, if I could just come up with a name for the Etsy store, I could really start this phase of my life.