December 8, 2016: All of these I finished well before Christmas, but I am in the midst of Christmas posting and don't want to lump that many together, so the Christmas ones will be first.
I knitted this
L'Enveloppe for Mom. I want to knit one for me, but I'm very particular about what type and color of yarn I want.
I used a garter ridge chevron stitch from a knitting book in the round for this cowl that was a birthday gift.
This is another birthday gift, and I think that it is cute, but don't buy any pattern for it. I bought a pattern (and I think there was a cheaper pattern!) for this because I thought the top is knit in the round and was more intricate than it was. Don't buy, you can figure out how to make it yourself; I should've known that because so many posted the same pattern. The top is a diagonal garter ridge or diagonal rib rectangle that you seam and gather. I bet you could knit it in the round in some way and have more professional finish (you need the cherry to cover the heavily gathered top in this case). I shouldn't have had to pay $5 for that; its legal to charge, but its unethical. I should have known better; I feel cheated.
I've had copyrights and patents in two classes this semester (after the first I went through and removed all photos that weren't mine from the blog). Any work is automatically copyrighted, but what that means is that the actual physical work or wording cannot be copied; the design or idea or pose or plot can be (can you imagine how few books there would be otherwise? lol). So the physical pattern cannot be scanned, typed out, etc. So, a person's particular rendering of an unorignal idea is protected but not the idea. For good reason, many ideas aren't that unique and could be created by many people simultaneously. Like this one.
Patents are far more serious; they are to protect serious innovation. Patents have many requirements and must be registered. I highly doubt any knitting pattern will be patented (I don't know if any would even qualify) and any detailed, original design will be super hard to copy anyway. And no patent would ever protect something as unorignal as this.
I didn't want to pay for the Holden pattern because it wasn't original enough in my mind (it isn't), but I couldn't find the plain pattern stitch (I did find a scarf with it) until after I purchased it, and figuring out the pattern stitch for a shawl is beyond my interest-skill balance (actually, it might not be that hard), so I am less dissatisfied with that purchase, but I need to be careful. Most patterns are around $5 and you can buy a book with several liked patterns for less than a few Ravelry patterns. And many of the patterns for sale aren't intricate enough even in books and knitting magazines to be worthy of a purchase. Make sure you look really hard for free and try it yourself if it isn't a complicated pattern or you could spend a ton of money for little creativity. Only really intricate lace designs or unique patterns (like the first listed) are really worth it. Others are somewhat worth it if they do a lot of the calculations for you or you could not find the stitches (like the first cowl).
Labels: Knitting, Morals & Moralizing & all that Jazz
