Wednesday, January 24, 2007

New Hat



So remember this? Well it became a hat because I was running out of yarn fast. What do you think? Personally, I love the hat! It fits my head pretty snug and I like that my first intarsia project came out looking good. Here's a close-up of the pattern.



I finished this baby on Sunday night and wore it to work the next day. Many of my co-workers liked it and were amazed when I told them that I had made it. My boyfriend suggested that I place the pattern for it on my blog. At first I thought that would be a great idea but then I thought that many of the ideas for this hat weren't mine. Like the intarsia motif and the manner in which the hat was made (I got help for the decreases at the crown from this book).

Still I like the hat and it was my first time doing intarsia and I think I did a pretty damn good job. So my question is if you recognized that you "borrowed" alot of the style elements of a piece you designed, can you really call it your own or are you a cut-and-paste kind of designer? I know that if you've been reading this thing from the beginning you would find out that one of the things that I would like to start doing for this blog is designing patterns and publishing them here. So let me hear your take on this situation. Is is copyright infringment? Would I be stealing? You decide.

3 comments:

Saun said...

A lot of techniques and motifs in knitting are very general and re-used but there is a fine line about how much you can re-use and call it yours . If you are copying things exactly then you can't copyright it yourself. For you, the biggest challenge on this pattern would be the re-use of the intarsia motif.

What I would suggest is to write up this pattern as a freebie and quote your sources. This will get you started on your pattern writing style and help you test the waters. As you grow as a designer you will start to develop your own techniques and this will be less of a concern.

meg said...

I think Saun's suggestion is perfect. Great practice, too.

And cute cute cute hat! I love those colors together.

Valerie Polichar said...

Good job, and it looks great on you!