Tilly & Floss

I am so proud of my daughter Rosie and her new business venture, Tilly (named after that naughty little goldendoodle shown below  “helping” Rosie with her work!) & Floss.

Rosie loves to sew and comes from an even longer line of needlewomen than I do (!) Not just on my side of the family – that’s obvious of course – but also on her father’s side as his mother and grandmother were also great knitters and stitchers.  Tilly & Floss is Rosie’s new Etsy shop where she’s offering her delightful little embroidered necklaces and (coming soon) brooches.  She’s been proudly showing off her creations on Instagram …..

(her photography skills are MUCH better than mine) and hopes to make her first sale very soon.  But earlier this week she was extremely upset when, quite out of the blue, somebody left her a series of very unkind comments on Instagram accusing her of stealing (yes really) another person’s designs.  I am not actually sure that a series of three stitches surrounded by French knots and some straight stitches qualifies as a design, but that’s beside the point.  What was really upsetting was that this person took it upon herself to publicly accuse Rosie of theft – yes she did use the word “steal” – in a most unpleasant way without doing any background research, or even contacting the person whose designs she thought had been stolen.

Now Rosie is completely honest and would NEVER steal anything at all.   She’d just been playing around with stitches and had come up with this particular combination.  So I advised her to contact the original designer, explain what had happened and ask for her opinion.  And we were both blown away by the gracious reply she received.  I can’t quote any names here as I promised not to (and I’m not into blaming and shaming anyway)  – but I have been given permission to quote from the designer’s email …..

“Thank you for reaching out to me via e-mail, I’m not the type of person to hash things out on instagram, I personally think it’s a little tacky and if there’s an issue at hand we can discuss it privately.  

The thing about embroidery is that no matter what we come up with, it’s probably been done before! I certainly didn’t invent the craft, it’s been around for hundreds of years so I really can’t say anything about anyone “stealing” a design. (The case would be different if I found something to be an EXACT copy of my work and they were trying to profit from it.) I’m rambling, but anyhow, the point is there is enough room for all of us embroidery artists to thrive and do business and come up with beautiful designs. I don’t feel as though I am in competition with any other makers of similar products as mine, I support everyone fully 100%. The point of Etsy and Instagram in my opinion is to support each other on the road to success. 

I think your necklaces are beautiful, you are very talented! They do look similar in the design but the colors and some of the stitches are different. I think we can both continue on doing our thing – like I said we can both thrive and exist in this world happily :)”

Wasn’t that lovely of her?    And so I guess the moral of this story – if indeed there is a moral – is that if you spot someone you think is copying then it’s best not to jump to conclusions, but contact the person being copied direct and let them respond.   Now Rosie feels a lot better (has deleted the nasty comments) and is busily stitching away again …..

And if you’d like to see more of her work then please do pop over to her Etsy shop, Tilly & Floss and take a look!