Online Design Swap a Napster-Like Concern

L O S   A N G E L E S, Aug. 1 -- The online copyright debate that has centered on software piracy and digital music has found a new arena: needlepoint.

Sewing enthusiasts have found they can swap doily-and-swanpatterns on the Internet instead of paying pattern publishers.

The pattern swapping, which is similar to the sharing of digitalmusic on services such as Napster, has pattern designersconsidering lawsuits against homemakers.

“Where will it end?” complained Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum, 54, aneedlepoint pattern designer. “I just don’t understand how these[people] can stitch a stolen angel and still live withthemselves.”

Pattern Piggies Unite!

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the little-knowncontroversy started about a year ago, when a group ofcomputer-savvy women decided to exchange needlepoint designs overthe Internet.

The online swapping made sense for Carlene Davis, a 52-year-oldgrandmother in Idaho, who said quality patterns are hard to find inher rural community.

“There aren’t very many stores that carry needlepoint patternsanymore,” Davis told the Times. “What they have is usually tacky.Who wants to [cross-stitch] a woman with a pineapple on her headand then frame it? I don’t want that hanging on my walls.”

The quest for quality patterns inspired Carla Conry, a mother ofsix, to create PatternPiggiesUnite!, a 350-member online communitythat is dedicated to pattern swappers.

“I”m only sharing [the patterns] with my friends, and theirfriends,” said Conry. “Why shouldn’t friends help each other outand save a little bit of money?”

The neighborly fun is costing Pegasus Originals, a SouthCarolina pattern design shop.

Hacking Housewives?

Sales have dropped as much as $200,000 a year, or about 40percent, since 1997, partly due to such swapping, said Pegasusfounder Jim Hedgepath. Pattern books typically cost about $6 each.