Knitting in the Shadows

The Return of Lace

Once upon a time, I seemed to knit nothing but lace. Lace lace lace.

I loved lace so much, I talked my dear friend into helping me start a Giant Repeating Lace KAL. We called it Seasons of Lace.  And I knit lace and ran the KAL for several years, and it was good.

And there was lots of lace.

  And then there was life. And massage school.

And suddenly, I was buried in way too much to do! It got so bad that lace all but disappeared from my needles.

It's been socks, and the lovely shadow-knitting afghan that I was commissioned to design and knit.

And the current lace project languished, pining for my attention.

As you may recall (well, likely not, since it's been so long .... ) I've gone on a tear, and am adapting Susan Pandorf's Dwarrowdelf Stole pattern for use as curtains. This means I needed to make them a lot WIDER to fit my windows.

So, being the oh-so-professional planner and detail person that I am... I hauled off and knit a top edge, vastly increasing the number of repeats called for by the stole pattern.

And then I looked to see what the ratio of repeats on top edge piece would be to the repeats on the body, and my brain fried a little.

In many ways, it has been simple (ish) math that was getting between me and my lace knitting.

I knew that the repeats on the top edge were 14 rows "wide". I knew that the ends of the top edge included a five row edge. (I spaced for the longest time on the three rows of set up at one end and the four rows of ... well... set down at the other).

I knew that I was getting approximately 7 rows to the inch. I knew that the repeats on the body would be 24 stitches wide. I knew that the ends included a 9 stitch edge on one side and an 18 stitch edge on the other.And... I knew that I was getting approximately 6 stitches to the inch.

Clearly, forgetting those 7 extra rows bollixed me up for a while.

But suddenly, after my brief escape to Oak Park, I made the math work! And here, we see the winding up of the skinny top edge:

It's pushing 44 inches long here. This aftenoon, I knit that five row edge, and bound off.

I'm now in the throes of picking up three hundred and some odd stitches along the edge that runs along the left side in that picture. So much for something to work on where the rows are short and I can feel like real progress happens when I knit for a few minutes.

Woman to Woman

Among the many things I do instead of sleeping is serve on the board of our local rape crisis center.  It's a good thing to do.  Sometimes, it means I know things about our community that I'd rather not know (after all, one likes to believe that the evil things in the world don't happen near one); sometimes it makes me immensely proud of the folks in our community who do the right thing.

Last year, our Executive Director got married.  She  and her partner were part of the first wave of folks who got married when our state legalized marriage between people of the same gender.  The board commissioned me (sort of) to knit something for them.  Eventually, we agreed on an afghan -- which I designed for the purpose.

It's a tricksy afghan (if I do say so).  When you look at it from one angle, it looks like this:

She said blues and black.... and that's what we've got.  But it's not quite that simple.  Because if you shift it just a little, suddenly it looks like this:

I'm calling it Woman to Woman.  I'm guessing I'll work one up for a Man to Man afghan once this is done.

It's taking far longer than I expected it to -- kind of like getting that law passed in the first place.  I'm pretty sure I'll have it done for their anniversary.

30 Days of Thanks - Day Fourteen and an FO

Once upon a time, I wrote a knitting blog.  I took pictures of my knitting in progress, and pictures of my finished knitted objects, and posted them for all to see.

In theory, this is still a knitting blog.  But alas, my camera's battery charger is still in hiding (something that I must fix within the next week, since the camera kind of has to go to Disney with us).  With no camera battery, there can be no good pictures.  And today, I've actually got something worth taking pictures of.

Today..... (being thankful for the camera in my phone)

I finished a pair of socks!

I am thankful that yarn does not spoil, and that stitches do not just fall off of needles when they've been there too long. This pair of socks has taken a truly frightening length of time to finish. 

No seriously. 

I cast on over a year ago! (okay, only, like, for days over a year ago, but still over a year ago).  At first, I thought I was going to make some fancy socks (Leyburn's), but in the end, I decided that I didn't much like the yarn in that pattern, so I frogged the sock and started over.  And then, I fussed over a toe up pattern, and made mistakes, and had to reknit the plain simple sock heels about five times...  And finally, FINALLY, I finished them.

I am also thankful that this yummy yarn (Merino & Tencel sock yarn  from Ellen's Half-Pint Farm) withstood all that frogging, and still looks lovely.

And I'm really thankful to be done knitting this particular pair of socks.

And..... I'm thankful for the new addition to my winter sock collection, expecially since one or two pair are dying beyond my ability to darn them.

Sneaking it in under the Wire

You may recall that I sort of run Seasons of Lace...(with help of course).  Well, the season ends tonight...(it is after all the Equinox, which some call Mabon).

I finished Stars Over Fairy Lace in the nick of time... with mere moments to spare ...

so, you get one not very good shot to prove that it's off the needles.  Tomorrow, I'll try to get some GOOD pictures.

So close..... and yet...

I thought I was going to do it.  I really did. I thought I was actually going to knit an entire pattern the way it was written -- with no modifications for fit, or style, or whim....

And I came close, too.  I'm on row 56 of 76 of the charted portion of Catkin (Rav link),
and still plan to knit rows 67 to 76 as the designer wrote them.  And the chart comes after 78 rows of uncharted knitting --- all of which I knit as written.

But alas, by going for the subtle look, I've chosen yarns that mean that what is supposed to happen in rows 44-66 ... well... doesn't happen. 

In this section, one should see stripes.  Vertical stripes marking off the corners of the shawl.  Kind of like this:

Let's zoom in a bit, shall we?

What I see, is ... well... nothin' much

Yeah, technically, the stripes are there... but... not very effectively.  So, I'm going to revamp these corners and work in another catkin at each one.  I've almost finished charting how to do it.

But .... I notice that in one of the original versions, it appears that someone actually did what I'm planning to do!

Again, let's take a closer look:

Does this mean that I AM following the design???

I spent a few minutes mulling over the possibility that I could just drop the stitches down and re-work these corners, but I think that the new version uses more of the darker yarn than the lighter yarn, while the original uses them equally - at least in the corners.  This may mean that I get to re-knit the last 10 rows again.  Sigh.

 

Kitting! Oh yeah!!

Once upon a time, I started a blog about knitting.  I blogged for years about knitting, and suddenly started going off track and blathering about books and customer service and make up....

But today I'm actually going back to knitting...

Well, I've BEEN knitting... a lot.  But I haven't been posting about it as much.

I've been making a little progress on Catkin...

 

What you see there at the bottom of the picture is an anamoly in my knitting.  There are three stitch markers there... three... in a picture that is close up enough to count the stitches!  I'm queen of minimalism when it comes to stitch marker use, but this pattern is hard enough to see at it's beginning that I'm finding having a marker for every stitch repeat really helpful.  So, what you see there is one repeat marker, and a pair of section markers (one on each side of a "centerline" stitch - though there are several of those).  I'm guessing that once it's established, and thus more visible, I may find that I don't need them anymore, but for now... I'm happy to have a stitch marker stash.

That's the newest project, and thus, inevitably, the most alluring.  But I'm still enjoying Fairy Stars ...

It's getting big enough that it's hard to photograph on the needles.  As it turns out, this is not going to be a small shall, it's going to be somewhere near the huge department.  And I'm changing the shape from triangular to something else whose name I'm not sure of.  I like to think I'm closing in on the place where I will split it in the middle....

...but really, there are two more sections to go.

In the mean time, my best buddy the Roomba..

has been being naughty lately.  It's been hunting string like things.  It bumps the wee side table next to my chair until things fall off it's bottom shelf, and then it gets tangled up in them.  This morning, I had to rescue a sock....

Just look at that mess!   Luckily, I caught it early.  Sometimes it winds up the yarn until it can't move.  Then it complains!  how rude.

Finished!

Yesterday, I finished a sweater that I designed for a client of mine.

I had some interesting design challenges as I went along.  The most recent was the realization that a section that I thought I knew what I was going to do with until I realized that I needed to make that section reversible.  I think my solution works well, and looks like it coordinates well with the sleeves (which it was supposed to match).  (I promise, pictures soon).

And then there was the bit where the collar and sleeves are supposed to be "lighter" than the body, and thus are using yarns that were doubled in the body in single strands.  That worked well until we got to the button-hole zone; my client chose a visually perfect glass button - which is heavy.  Again, I'm pleased with my solution there as well - it doesn't weigh down the collar/lapel, but does support the button.  (And again, there WILL be pictures)

My next challenge is to figure out how to get good pictures of the sweater without a model.  While it is possible that my lovely client will agree to pose for pictures, I don't to assume that she'll want to.  After that, I'll be working on sizing it down to tween size (Bookworm likes the style, and thinks she'd like one).  I figure once I've sized it down that far, it will be somewhat less of a challenge to work up the sizes in between.

I've also finished the first section of Catkin:

For some reason, the contrast between the two yarns in these pictures is actually a bit stronger than it is in reality -- but not by much.  This one is a tad closer..

Either way, I'm really liking the subtle "contrast" of these two yarns.

I have run into a bit of a snag though.  At this point, I should have 233 stitches at the end of a wrong side row.

  I have 231 stitches, having just finished a wrong side row.  The thing is, one increases EVERY row, so I can't just do another pair of rows (thus leaving myself starting a right side row, as I should be to begin the next section) to get my stitch count.  So, somewhere in this next row, I guess I'm going to have to sneak in an extra pair of increases somewhere.  I'm guessing that the only person who will notice, is me.

Home Again Home Again

I just spent a fantastic weekend up in Lake County Illinois, where I attended the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair for the first time.  Despite some bizarre policies imposed by the Festival management, I had a wonderful time.

First off, I got to stay with my co-moderator for Seasons of Lace.  And, with the exception of a wee bit of updating (logging new participants for this season, and putting the preliminaries for new prizes up on the blog) that I did, we pretty much did no work at all.  YAY us.  We hung out, we knit togehter, we watched new-to-me TV, we listened to awesome music, we had great food.... just what a weekend away with a great friend is supposed to do.

Second, I got to spend an entire day learning from Franklin Habit.

Franklin is every bit as witty in person as he is on his blog.  And he's a veritable font of knowledge, which he shares downright eagerly.  His classes definitely count among the best I've taken at any fiber related venue.  And no, he most certainly did not pay me to say that.  He turned me into a sponge, and then filled me with knowledge, while keeping me eager for more, and smiling the while.

I spent the morning learning all sorts of wonderful things about how to use my camera (or any camera), and I'm going to pretend that this means that the photography here will improve.  I then spent the afternoon learning about tesselations, and how to make them work for knitting designs.  Among the things we learned, is that the word "tesselation" comes from "tesselum" - which is a single tile used in places like the mosaic floors in Pompeii.  Franklin demonstrated such tiles by passing around -- an actual chunk of Pompeii!

I came out of the second class with my brain so full that I couldn't even register any of the lovely stuff in the market.  In fact, I commented to Alyse that my brain was so full, and so done, that even a simple menu was likely to be too much for it. (I was right -- we had to get an appetizer (that she chose) before I began to be able to make any decision about my actual order).

I also came out of the second class with two workable tesselations, and ideas for more.  There's even one on the needles (one that Franklin called "hot" no less -- I'm bursting with pride), and were it not that I had been so disorganized on my way out the door Thursday that I grabbed the first two skeins of solid colored sock weight yarn I could find, wholly ignoring that they look rather putrid together), I'd even show you.  I'll work them up in better colors (or do some camera magic on them, perhaps), and show you when they're more presentable.

Despite all that joy, I do have a couple of bones to pick with the Festival organizers.  (The first three are all inter-related.) < kvetch mode on >

First:  As with many such events, they charge folks to get into their market, but allow students who have paid for classes (and thus some admin costs) to get in free.  The set up for getting in as a paid student was a bit of a nightmare: it took forever, as the staff first had to scan a bar-code thing you were supposed to have logged into their website to download and print out (one for each class day) so that as a student you could get in without paying an additional fee.  But they also had to mark you off a list (I guess so that no one could double print and share their bar codes).  Seems to me, if you're marking folks off the list, the bar code scanning was just a waste of time to show off cute little electronic divices.  If you're using a bar code scanner, oughtn't it be able to tell that you've used that code once already?  Doing both meant that the whole process took a long time for each person.  Arriving close to class time pretty much guaranteed you'd be late.

Second: If you didn't have your magic bar code printed out (for example, you didn't get the email that told you you needed one, or you don't have a printer or...), you were turned away and had to pay to get in.  Yes... even if you were on the list and had a printed confirmation that you were a paid student. (I think maybe if you hadn't registered far enough in advance you got charged?)

Third: Unlike other events I've attended, you only got in free on the day you had classes.  This means that if Person A took two half-day classes on two different days, that person got into the market on two days, and had, effectively, a full day to shop.  However, if Person B took two half-day classes (thus paying the same amount as Person A), but took them on the same day, Pesrson B only got in on one day, and thus had a maximum of two hours to shop (one hour between classes, and one hour at the end of the day).  If Person B wanted to shop the market, s/he had to pay to get in the second day. That seems unfair.  That seems unfair both to Person B and to the Vendors.  (By comparison, taking one half-day class at Stitches gets you into the Market for all three days of classes AND for the Student Preview (when only students get to go in)).

Fourth: They completely wasted the wonderful musicians that were scattered throughout the market.  They had folk musicians all over, but in that cavernous space, one couldn't hear them more than about five feet away.  They also neglected to set up any chairs to allow folks to sit and listen to the musicians.  I'd have liked to have seen at least small speakers and some mics and a few chairs for each musician so that folks could enjoy the lovely music they played (and sang).  Pretty much the only instruments whose sound carried far enough to enjoy without sitting in the musicians laps were the hammered dulcimers.

< kvetch mode off >

Despite all that picky whining, I had a great time, and am really glad I went.

I did go back on day two to wander the market, even though that meant paying for the privilege.  Mostly, I talked to vendors about supporting Seasons of Lace, but I did succumb to one skein of sock yarn just for me:

  That's luscious Blue Faced Leicester Superwash.  Sofffft... but not felty.

I also bought a lovely little pottery bowl, which I've wholly failed to photograph.  I'll work on that soon (using my newly learned camera skillz).

We will not discuss that my entrance fee to the market was a nearly a quarter of my total market spending.

 

All done but the buttons

I've been secretly working on a wee pattern .... and since I've decided that I'm not going to fuss with submitting it for publication somewhere besides Fiber Dancers' own pages, I can haul off and show you the finished product.

This project was in response to a Ravelry Designers Group challenge.  The cues were: Baby, Cables, Ocean.

Now, that's certainly not a glamour shot (and there will be some), but I wanted to get something up ...

I had a devil of a time getting the sleeves to come close to the body.  Side to side intarsia cables is easy.  But regular up and down intarsia cables that manage to mirror the sideways ones whupped up on me hard enough that I abandoned the effort.  I'm thinking it may have had something to do with the tiny space I was working in (a whopping 24 stitches).  Here's what I did instead:

 

And since I wasn't paying attention to the fact that the intended recipient of this sweater is reported to be a girl, and failed utterly to put the buttonholes in the right place, I came up with an alternative to actual buttonholes so that one button goes on each side....

As you can see, there will be fish buttons.

I'm trying to resist the urge to put fish buttons on the back -- it'll be visually great, but not so comfy for sleeping on --

So .. that's Cables by the Sea.  I'm writing up the pattern, and will be doing a tutorial on intarsia cables, as well as one on that freaky little button loop I devised.  (Only I would come up with a button loop that requires grafting stitches... ).

I'm plotting a co-ordinating blanket.

Love/Hate Relationships

There's always something that you love and hate at the same time. For me, lately, it's been my charting software.... or maybe it's just the writing it down part of designing knitting patterns.

Yeah, I've whined before.

I have two that I use: Intwined Pattern Studio, and Knit Visualizer.  There are things about each that I like.  And I suspect that Knit Visualizer now has some of the features that I like, but it's very expensive.  Even the upgrade from the version I have to the current version (when it was still available) was more than twice what I paid for Intwined Studio.  Worse yet, my Knit Visualizer will not run on Windows 7.  So I can't move it over to the new computer -- and that means that for some of my patterns, I have to keep going back and forth between the machine with the charting software, and the machine with the better version of Word and/or Publisher.

Whine.

Today, I've been designing stitches in Intwined Studio.  And the software has responded to my creativity by crashing.  I've "created" the same five stitch cable at least four times.  I've also "created" the same three four-stitch cables four times.  It eats them.  It pretends to have them, then crashes and loses them.

Okay, that's not entirely fair.  I have, finally, been able to get all four cables entered and available to use. And furthermire, my experience so far with the folks at Intwined Studio is that they respond REALLY fast to support questions.

Meanwhile...None of the cables look quite right in the chart, because the software doesn't really expect me to work three stitches over one stitch, or even over two.  And that means that the angles of the lines don't quite match.  So they look all ziggy.   And that's not considering the fact that it really doesn't think I'll work three over two with a seed stitch background.

I'm trying not to go look to see if the old software has any of these cables.  I do NOT want to start a pattern design using a software that I'll have to phase all the way out when my laptop dies.

So, I need to learn how to "draw" the little icons that it uses to create the symbols on a chart.  I'm guessing I'll need still more software, since the file type isn't one that paint makes.

Today, for the first time, I'm beginning to wonder if learning to make Excel do my charts wouldn't be easier.  Of course, Excel doesn't translate from chart to words very well.

On other love/hate fronts - As much as I love my little camera, I hate that I can't seem to get replacement batteries for it.  Right now, I really hate that I seem to have mislaid the charger for the only battery I have.  This means that I can't photograph the fun things I'm knitting. 

Not even the ones that I'm not contemplating offering up to some magazine somewhere for publication.

 

 

On Reviewing Books

Some of you may notice that there are ads over there in the side bar.  Those ads, provided by BlogHer, are what pay for the blog, which lets me keep nattering on in public.  Every so often, BlogHer offers up a new way to play with them.  This time, I could not resist:  I get to review books.  Well, to be accurate, I get to review one book.  I'm assuming that if they don't like the way I do it, they'll pull the plug.

Now, I totally plan to share my review with you, but this time, I'm just writing about the reviewing process.  As tempting as it is to write my review like a serial story -- with daily updates on how I feel about the book as I go along -- I'm not going to do that.

Usually, I pick up a book, and just read.  But I figured that if I'm supposed to write a decent review, I should take notes for myself.  That, apparently, puts me into editor mode.  I found myself distracted by either a typo or a grammar error (apostrophe placement) on like, page 7.

It took a while to trim back that editor view.  I'm still trying to take notes, so that I don't forget something I noticed as I was reading that I think is worth including in the review -- but I'm also trying to just go with the flow and read the book.  For what it's worth, I've gotten "in" to the story now, and have fewer quibbles, but that may be because finally, my family is letting me just sit and read!

Meanwhile, I'm playing with a group of folks on Ravelry who put up design challenges once a month.  The past two have not excited me, but this month, I'm totally in!  I'm still swatching, but should be in the GO mode pretty soon.  Luckily, this one is a baby garment, so it'll knit up quickly!  Can't wait to get this one out to testers!

Stars -- Splitting?

Ages ago, I started knitting a shawl for a dear friend.  She had chosen my design Stars Over Diamonds (Rav Link), and that meant i got to knit something I knew well.  Other things have slipped in, but I've been working on it fairly steadily (even though the original deadline was removed).

But wait, what's going on up there at the top?

That is where this shawl diverges from the original pattern.  We decided that the triangle shape was not quite right.... in order to make it as wide as she wants it, it was going to wind up going down to her knees, which was not what she wanted.

Redesign happening now.

 

Touching Base

I'm not dead yet (uh oh, I've said that before).

Not much going on that's worth writing about. 

I'm desiging, but might be offering these designs up to magazines and such, and thus, well, can't show you.

I am redesigning Stars over Diamonds (Rav link) to offer it in a different shape.  Once that becomes somthing visible in the knitted object, I'll show you.

I've started talks with a tech editor (very exciting for me, but not so interesting to write about -- and not much I can say until talks are farther along).

I HAVE, however, signed up for my courses for Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair. I'm now looking forward to a day with Franklin.  I'm particularly excited about the photography course -- which I'm hoping will let me take better pictures for my patterns in the future.

On the home front, ShadowLand is now protected by a nice new roof.  It makes me smile every time it rains.  And it's been raining a lot!

 

It's too loud; or More New than I Wanted

This week is a funds hemmoraghing kind of week.

Over the weekend, we had the annual visit to the eye doctor.  Ka-ching.

I've confirmed that though my macular pigment number is low, it's not moving, so we dont' have to do anything about THAT.  And, we rejoiced the Bookworm continues to have excellent vision.

We're also pleased that Golf Pro really just needs off the rack readers.

Alas, Kitty and I need new prescriptions.  Around here, it's actually cheaper to buy whole new pairs of glasses, since all the good deals are for full pairs, not just lenses.  By cheaper, I do not mean affordable.

I've had bifocals since I was in fifth grade.  That means single vision deals are not available to me.  And I get progressives because -- well, they seem to be keeping me away from tri-focals.  But dang do they charge for them! 

We came home Monday afternoon with my credit card just whimpering. (Three pairs of glasses richer, including these and me very happy to at long last have decent sunglasses whose prescription is current, but still).

Today, they're tearing the roof off my house.  It's LOUD.  It's also kind of spooky -- shingles flying, and naked plywood being revealed all over everywhere.  I mean, c'mon people, it's SPRING in the Midwest.  That means that high winds and rain are always just around the corner.  Today is sunny, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that it stays pleasant until they get the new felt and some shingles up there.

But if things go well, that means the poor credit card will get hit for a ROOF tomorrow. (A month from now, the Home Equity Line of credit will get hit for it, but in the mean time, we'll have racked up some flyin' miles baby.)

In yarnly news - the Client Sweater is progressing well (and she likes it).  The huge shawl is in various states of testing, but at least one version has hit the last chart.  The mystery knitty project is waiting for news, and the magic hat is waiting for a tester's photo shoot.  I'm hoping to release it this week.

I'm scared now....

Sure, we all know that I go around desiging things.  And we know that I write patterns up for those things that I've designed.  And we knot that I send these patterms out to testers to make sure that they say what I think they say.

And.... we know that I sell those designs (both here and on Ravelry).

But today, I did a thing I've never done before.  And while I was all confident and stuff getting things ready, now I'm really nervous.

Today... I sent a design to Knitty for consideration for their First Fall & Holiday Headstart issue.  (gleep).  I've never sent a design to someone who hadn't asked me first if I wanted to so so.

Of course, having sent it off, I can't show you a picture  :-(

All I've got for pics right now is this:

It's another piece in the design queue.

Love Affair with Judy's Magic..

Several years ago, I went to a wonderful (wonderful) workshop with Cat Bordhi.  Among the things I learned there was a cast on unvented by the delightufl Judy Becker (who was a "classmate" of mine there, how cool is that).  {For those non-knitters among you, a cast on is the way one gets stitches on a needle.  You're more than welcome to stay, but this post is really gonna be knit-geeky, and you might just want to bail now and wait until I do something different (I may, for example, do a little dance on contingent fees in personal injury suits}

So, this cast on, now rather popular, is called Judy's Magic Cast On.  You can find all sorts of tutorials for it on You Tube, but I find it particularly delightful that one of them is done by Cat Bordhi.

So... where was I? Oh yes, talking about this glorious cast on.  I'm fond of it, to be sure.  And any time I need a provisional cast on, I gravitate directly to that one.  (I wonder if I even remember the other ways -- besides the old stand by using scrap yarn and a crochet hook). 

Oh, lookie, we've got a newbie or non-knitter still with us.... I hear a soft voice murmering "What in blazes is a provisional cast on?? Is that something you put where you're not sure you really wanted to cast on??" 

Well, not quite.   A provisional cast on is one that, instead of leaving a nice edge (firm or stretchy, depending) on one side, and a bunch of live stitches on the needle on the other, like this:

 

(well, okay, that's a cast on edge, with a bunch of beads, and on row knit.  But you can see the edge and the live stitches, right?)

leaves live stitches on both sides! (like this:)

This is right after the cast on.  Here's what happens after you've knit one row:

And here's where you are after knitting two rows:

That means that you can then knit in both directions away from the cast on.  This can be very useful...... say, in scarves with lace or textured patterns that are visually very different when upside down; you can caston provisionally, knit one side, bind off, go back to the live stitches that are still up there, and knit the other side -- which will be the first side's identical twin as it lays on your coat collar.

As I said.  I've known for a long time that I think provisional cast ons are nifty as all get out.  But today I realized just how far gone I am.  I'm working on this sweater design.  It starts in the center back, so ... obviously... I used Judy's Magic Cast On.  As I'm going along side to side, I increased at the neckline until.... voila ... it dawns on me that I can avoid shoulder seams if I just cast on more for the front piece.  For some sweaters, you really do WANT shoulder seams.  But I think that this one might actually benefit from their absence.  Besides, I can always go back and do a magic shoulder stabilizer thing if I'm wrong.

Now, if I just cast on to bring stitches over the shoulder, I'd have a nice clean EDGE.  That woudl be nice if said edge would wind up where I want the center edge of the cardigan to be.. but of course, I'm no longer at the center of the sweater, having knit one side of the neck.  That means... you guessed it, I'll need to knit in both directions from that point if the thing will be other than a kimono with no hope of ever being buttoned.  Since my client bought a very cool button so that she could button the sweater, I'm thinking I'll need to do that bi-directional knitting thing.  And so, I've provisionally cast on again.  I'll be adding at least one more provisional cast on before it's over.   Heck, it's entirely possible that they'll all be in play before I bind off a thing.  Here's the latest one, a couple of rows in.

But my favorite part about Judy's Magic Cast On?  It's the only one I've heard of that leaves a purl bump between the cast on edges... so once it's in play, you really can't find the place you started.

 

And the designing continues..

I've been comissioned to design and knit a sweater.  My client has this sweater that she bought in one of those discount stores where the sweaters are, like, $9.00.  She found it, fell in love with the way it fits, and now... can't find anything like it again.

So, she's asked me to take the sweater, and figure out what makes it fit the way she likes, and make her a new sweater.  As it turns out, mostly it's just that the sweater is just the right length, and it's just snug enough.  So, I'll be working with a similar shape, but changing some other stuff... and hope that it all means I make something lovely.

So, we went to the yarn store together, and had a lovely time while she discovered just what a real yarn store is, and just what real yarn is like.  I introduced her to new-to-her fibers. And then we sat on the floor with little piles of yarn until she chose just what she wanted.

What started as a simple sweater ended up with five different yarns in it!  Here it is with four of them in play...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know... those pale stripes look a bit odd so far, but I'm hoping that my plan, in which they appear at a fairly regular interval, will work and look all intentional and stuff.  The yarn in those strips will be in the collar and cuffs later.  And really -- the colors don't quite look that way; I tried with flash, without flash... tomorrow, I'll try daylight.

Notice I didn't say sunlight?  That's because, despite a glorious day on the Equinox (sun, 70 degrees, and a new pump for the pond, so the waterfall is back on), today grew steadily drearier, and then rained, and we're due for more rain and more cold tomorrow.

So... for a while, you'll get to see some unusual colors for this blog.  That's what happens when you knit for other people using the colors they like instead of the colors I like.

And, I'll be alternating this, with the tail end of the Fairy Stars (yep, still knitting that, but I'm in the top border now).

On the benefits of designing gauntlets.

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm designing a pair of lace fingerless gauntlets for Kitty.  She had some pretty stringent specs for them:

1) Long -- Fingerless GAUNTLETS, not Fingerless Mitts.  To the elbow. She'd likely have been happy had I made them go past her elbow, but I didn't to deal with the potential challenges of the elbow.

2) Lace -- but not too lacy.  She's not known for being gentle on things.

3) No wool -- because even though she wanted them long long long -- her hands get really hot.

And I've done it. She says it's perfect. (Phew -- knitting for teenagers is risky.)

While I now have a great plan for gauntlets (or wrist warmers for that matter) that catch the thumb without covering the palm, I also have a completed gauntlet pattern for more standard gauntlets.  I've also got a completed gauntlet to which I made some adjustments to reduce the palm coverage. 

And now... I get to do the first teal test of my pattern myself!  That's the benefit of designing things that come in pairs.  To finish making sure that the design works for both hands, (and to finish the pair for Kitty), I have to/get to test the pattern in a way I don't really get to test other things.

There's a reason I don't test knit very often.  I tend to "fix" mistakes as I knit.  And when I'm knitting my own patterns, I tend to do what I know what's supposed to happen, whether or not I actually wrote it down that way. (That makes me a truly horrid test knitter for my own patterns).  But, when I'm trying to figure out what ways the left one is going to work out differently from the right -- well... I have less tendency to just do what I know is there, and am more likely to really see what I wrote.

Soon, I hope, I'll be sending this pattern off to real testers.

 

Modern Technology trumps pen and paper again.

Maths .....

Stupid simple maths (addition, subtraction, simple multiplication) were beating me to death.

I came so close to caving.

I even cried uncle on an email list -- and Ravelry

I almost posted here to ask if there was anyone out there who would have been willing to help me get the damned numbers right (so that I'm really having folks cast on the right number of sitches, and so that I'm really telling them the right numbers for how many repeats of things to knit, and how many stitches they should have at the end of each section).

But then, I remembered that I have a computer.  And ya know what?  It has a spreadsheet program!

It's so cool!  You can plug in known numbers, and it can figure out the unknowns that you need to know!  And... once you figure out how to calculate that number once, you can tell it how, and it'll do it over and over for different knowns -- practically automatically!

Turns out, I'm more competent at setting up the spreadsheets than I was at calculating using pen, paper and that other magic tool my computer has (which they call, are you ready? a calculator).

 

It means that I gave my wonderful glorious pattern testers the RIGHT numbers for the first oh, third... of the pattern so far.  But, the magic tool showed me that I need to rechart something for the triangular derivation.  I refuse to give instructions that say "(k1, bead1, k5, bead1)  11 1/2 times.......

Meanwhile, I sketched out five design ideas last night.  Yes, they're all sort of derivations of each other, but starting with a single premise, I've got pretty different looks none-the-less.

This all means that I've not been spending as much time as I ought to have done cleaning my house.  Alas, I've a deadling coming up.  Tuesday.

Tuesday, we're hosting a small, informal, informational - non-fundraising- meeting for the local Anti Rape Center.  It's only a year and a half old in its current formation, and we're trying to get more people in the community aware of what all it does.  It's a whole lot more than running the Rape Crisis Hotline (which, btw, the volunteers do very very well).  I'm on the board, so I get to host one of these shindigs.

But that means that people I don't know will be in my house!  And that triggers something my mother bred deeply into me -- any part of the house that these people see has to be spotless.  Sometimes, I wish I could let go of that.

.... Why did it have to be Maths??

Maths, why did it have to be maths?  Maths are so much worse than snakes you know.

I actually like snakes.

But here I am, doing maths. Again.

Because evidently, I can't count to 1057.

And once I've got my 1057 (even if I call it 1058, and am then persuaded that it's really 1059...), I seem to have been unable to wrap my brain around the fact that if you have a left side thing that starts with 18 stitches, followed by a bunch of repeats of section that starts with 17 stitches followed by a right side thing that has, well, um, 17 stitches ....

there aren't actually 66 repeats of the middle part,

there are only 64 repeats of that part.

see, basic maths:

17 + (66 * 17) + 17 does not equal 1057.  Not even on a really good day.

And then, if you decrease a bunch in each repeat, you really won't have enough for 66 repeats of anything at the end of the chart... even if you count those outside two things as a repeat (which you shouldn't). You will, in fact, have only enough for um, something like  62 repeats (plus some outside things.) 

Maths.

And this, my friends, is basic maths.  Not quite second grader material, it does after all use three digit numbers and multiplication.  But still.  Maths.

I'd rather play with snakes.

I'm hoping that, having seen the light on this one, I will do a better job with the next bit of maths. (Note to self: the number of repeats really is likely to go down with every single chart -- you're decreasing your way to the top).

In the mean time, I'd like your help.

I've got these charts -- what feels like thousands of them right now, but really not so many.

I have two questions about them:

1) when a pattern has a right side, a center section, and a left side, would you rather have one really wide chart (that therefore can't use a large "font" or it wouldn't fit on the page, even sideways)?  Or would you prefer three charts with a larger font?

2) when a section sort of splits part way through, so that you work a right side, many repeats, and then the left side for, say 15 rows... but then splits so that you work a right edge, several repeats, a central decrease, several repeats, and then a left edge, would you rather have one chart that looks like there are two different repeated sections throughout, so that the placement of the split is really easy to see? Or would you rather have two charts -- one with the part before the split (which thus shows only one repeated section) and one at and after the split?  Does it make a difference if the chart is otherwise small enough that font isn't going to be an issue?

 

 

 

 

Firestorms over not very much - part IV (A bit more on the DCMA and an insult)

We left the DCMA discussion at the point where a TakeDown notice has been sent to an ISP.

So, what happens next?

Normally, this happens after the "subscriber" has already posted the allegedly infringing material on the website (as in Wanda Wannabe's just-plain-stolen design and poor Olivia Originality's truly-new design both posted on Webhost X).  That is, after all, what the statute says -- the complaining party has to provide "information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material."   If the stuff hasn't been posted, how can we identify where to find it?

And in the normal case, the ISP (Webhost X) takes the allegedly offending material down (or block access to it).  They do this as quickly as ever they can to prevent any additional harm coming to the infringed upon person (well, okay, and also because if they dawdle, the infringed upon person might have an argument that since the Webhost folks KNEW that the material was infringing, every day that they left it up was causing preventable harm to the copyright holder, and thus, sh/e could sue the ISP (Webhost).  If the delay was long enough, the courts will buy that argument and the ISP would have to pay some judgment or other.)

So, Dora sends a takedown notice to Webhost X, claiming that Olivia's pattern infringes on her copyrights.  If she does it right, Webhost takes the pattern down, and tells Olivia about the notice.

If she's savvy, Olivia Originality, who has not infringed on anyone's copyrights, will then file a Reverse Take Down notice with- Webhost X.  For it to work, it has to say several very specific things, and provide specific information.  Like the takedown notice, it has to include a digital or physical signature, and it has to identify the material that "has been removed or to which access has been disabled" and  it has to identify the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access disabled.  It must include the subscriber's name (Olivia Originality in this case), address and telephone number, and a statement  that "the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled."  The subscriber also has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal District court for the judicial district in which the address is located, and also has to agree to accept service of process from the person who provided the original notification.

Ooh, legal gobbledy gook. Let's see if we can parse that into plain English. 

The first part is easy. (/s Olivia Originality). The second part is easy if you've actually posted the stuff ; for Olivia, it would be the url of the link to her pattern (or the link through which to buy it).  Name, address, phone number, no problem.  But that good faith belief thing? What's that?

Well, a good faith belief is one that is supported by some evidence or reasonable understanding - but not much.  Whether or not I believe in, say, live garden gnomes, and I believe that garden gnomes are stealing the fish from my neighbor's pond, it's unlikely that a court would find I had a "good faith belief" that a garden gnome stole the fish I was accused of stealing unless I could offer some evidence that it was a garden gnome and not some other creature with which the court was more familiar (say, my child, or my cat).  On the other hand, if I had a picture of a garden gnome running across the lawn with a goldfish in it's arms, that would be more than enough to form such a belief, even I didn't bother to check whether the picture had been altered.  Likewise, seeing several people come in front outside dripping wet  is enough to give me a good faith belief that it's raining with some vigor.

Olivia likely has a good faith belief that her design doesn't infringe on Dora Designer's pattern if Olivia drew up the charts herself without looking at other charts, or picked up her needles and knit without looking at any pattern and then wrote down what she did.

It troubles me a little that the text of the law is that it doesn't say that the subscriber gets to say "hey, that doesn't infringe on his copyright".  The subscriber can only say that there was a "mistake", or that the material was "misidentified". But what on earth does it mean to say that the "material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or mis-identification of the material to be removed or disabled."?  That's a little hard for me, and I'm trained in reading statutes. I did try to find a federal court opinion to explain it, but don't have access to the really good opinion searching tools, and came up empty handed.

While it sounds like it means that the subscriber has to tell the ISP that it made a mistake, it's really referring to a mistake that the complaining person made.   I'm not sure whether that means that the complaining person made a mistake and identified the wrong material as infringing, or that it means that the complaining person was mistaken about whether the material infringed his/her copyright.

Either way, if Dora Designer saw the pattern that Wanda swiped and posted under the name Sunbeams and Starlight, but tells Webhost X that the offending pattern is Olivia Originality's Moonbeams and Starlight pattern... she has mistakenly mis-identified the infringing material.  Likewise, if she heard some story that Olivia's pattern was copied from hers, even though it wasn't, if she tells Webhost X that the pattern infringes on her copyright, she'll have mistakenly mis-identified the pattern as infringing. This is badly phrased, but presumably it works.

Then there's that bit where if Person B/the subscriber (Wanda Wannabe, or Olivia Originality from my examples)(or me from my life) wants to resist this mess, and ask/demand that our ISP (Webhost X in the examples, or Ravelry) to put the pattern back up, we have to agree to go play in Federal Court!

Worse yet, if you're playing with Ravelry, what they say about that differs from what the law says.  The law provides that the subscriber has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court for the district in which the subscriber lives, but if (and only if ) the subscriber's address is outside of the United States, the subscriber must then agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court in the district in which the service provider may be found. Ravelry, however, says that to send a counter notice to them, the subscriber has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court where Ravelry is -- with no option identified for submitting to the Federal Court near the Subscriber.  That's a big difference. It's a good thousand miles for me... but for folks on the left-coast ... well.... ahem

So, given that last tidbit, unless Wanda Wannabe, who stole Dora Designer's pattern and posted it on Webhost X, is a glutton for punishment, she probably sighs at having been caught, and lets Webhost take the pattern down.  That, I think, is what the designer in my case was hoping I'd do.  After all, who wants to go to Federal Court if you didn't really design the pattern?  You'll have to hire a lawyer, possibly travel, and pay for all of the other expenses of litigation.

Olivia, on the other hand, who did design something original, would  likely file a counter takedown notice with Webhost X.  Thus, our old friend Webhost X would have dueling takedown notices on their lawyer's desk (I wish I had Franklin's mad skilz here.  I can totally picture one of his cartoons with the notices using straight needles to duel over a pattern).  Now what?

Now, the ISP (Webhost X) informs the complaining person (Dora Designer) that the subscriber has filed a counter takedown notice.  After that, if the complaining person doesn't file suit in Federal Court (in the district that the subscriber has already agreed has jurisdiction), the ISP has to put the material back up (or restore access to it) within 10-14 business days.

In my case, things are going to be a little bit different.

Ravelry's lawyer has "apprised me" that he's received a "valid" takedown notice. Personally, I don't quite get how he could give Ravelry a valid take down notice without the information on where Ravelry could find the material he was alleging infringed on his copyright.  And there's no way the designer could  have provided that information, because the material in question is not located anywhere on Ravelry's site. In fact, as far as I know, it's not located on any website (unless one of my testers gets her emial via webmail).

Yep.  I've received notice a DCMA TakeDown notice from Ravelry's lawyer, who claims that the notice is valid, but I haven't actually posted the allegedly infringing pattern anywhere.  (Okay, the designer who is stirring up this silliness seems to think that by sending the pattern to my testers, I've posted his pattern to the universe - but since I did not use Raverly to send those pdfs to anyone, Ravelry has no business getting involved with that). Nonetheless, Ravelry's lawyer has promised/threatened that if I have the audacity to post my patterns, Ravelry will take them right down again. 

This whole takedown thing pretty much sucks for anyone who is falsely, or inaccurately accused.  Luckily, the DMCA does have one provision intended to protect folks like me from malicious filing of takedown notices. Title 17, Chapter 5, § 512 of the U.S. Code provides that if someone knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing (in other words, knows (or has a really good reason to believe) that something isn't actually infringing on his/her copyright, but reports that it is, using a DMCA takedown notice to get an ISP to remove or block that thing), that person will be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys fees, that the falsely accused may incur as a result of the takedown.

 

Even though I dispute the validity of this particular takedown notice, I replied to Ravelry's lawyer by providing my  Counter Takedown Notice, and explaining why I am confident that my design does not infringe on anyone's copyright at all. (yep, that's me... giving more than necessary - and if anyone asks, I'll subject you all to that thorough analysis, with lots of links to other patterns, and maybe even a picture or two). 

I had assumed that if a designer could pre-emptively file a take-down notice, before I'd even posted my pattern, I could pre-emptively respond, so that we could clear things up before my testers were done. Silly me.

Here's what the lawyer sent in reply:

"since the alleged infringing pattern has yet to be published, there is nothing for me to remove under the DMCA.  When you publish the pattern(s), I will be required to remove the patterns pursuant to the DMCA guidelines.  You will then have a time period in which to respond with a counter takedown notice.  You must ensure you 100% comply with the requirements under the DMCA for a valid counter takedown notice.

"Ravelry will not be the arbitrar of this dispute but will simply follow the guidelines as set forth in the DMCA.

"My suggestion is you read the Ravelry terms of use or the DMCA if you require further information."

so... evidently, I have to follow the exact letter of the law, but he doesn't?

Whatever.

Meanwhile, I got another message from the designer in which he told me that he's handed the whole thing over to Ravelry's lawyer (who, as I recall, represents Ravelry, not the designers who play there).  He also told me, without meaning to be "harsh", that  I don't have the creativity or imagination to design "a sophisticated lace shawl", and went on to give disparaging review of the designs that I have for sale on Ravlery.  While I admit that some of his designs do qualify as sophisticated lace shawls, I can't say that about the pattern he's whining about. 

Oddly enough, I'm not inspired to respond to him further.  I'll just wait to see what happens when my wonderful test knitters have finished their shawls and, having had their invaluable help in eradicating at least most of the errors that inevitably creep into a pattern with this much going on, I release the pattern.

Instead, I'm working on a design for a pair of Gauntlets for Kitty.  I'm almost done - writing up how I do the thumb split is always hard, 'cause I tend to do a bunch of fiddly stuff.

Firestorms over not very much - part III (an introduction to the DCMA)

So, Monday night, I sent off my well reasoned, complimentary, thorough response to the fellow who is trying to claim that my pattern design (sitll with testers) infringed upon his copyright.

I then opened the next messge from him in which he says that since he knew I'd been active on Ravelry, but hadn't yet bothered to respond to him, he was withdrawing his "offer to compromise" and was reporting me to Ravelry.  (As you may recall his offers to compromise have been 1) to tell me that if I withdrew my pattern from my testers immediately, he'd keep our conversation private, and 2) to tell me that if I changed what amounts to 1/3 of my design from something that has been used in dozens of other designs, it might be enough to get him to admit that my design is original.)

I responded, at 8:20 p.m., saying, essentially, that I realized that this issue is important to him, but that I do have other obligations (children to take care of, for example).  I explained to him that I had assumed that he didn't really want an off the cuff response to his prior message, and that in addition to meeting my other obligations, I'd taken the time to alert my testers, fix that one chart for him, and draft a considered response to his message.

I pointed out that since  I had already alerted my test knitters to his concerns, it seemed to me that "unless and until I send my pattern to anyone else, no further harm is happening, so we have time to discuss the issue rationally. Rushing things won’t improve the results."  I also pointed out that there isn't really a way that I can force my test knitters to delete the pdfs I'd sent to them from their computers.

Anf finally, I mentioned that though he talked about compromise, he hadn't actually offered one of his own.  I then slipped and got a bit snippy, saying "Your acceleration of this problem at this rate assumes that the only thing I have to do is respond to you. It’s neither reasonable, nor evidence of any desire to resolve this dispute in a civil manner. I’ve compromised already, seems like it’s your turn." 

While ordinarily, I'd regret that last bit ... it turns out that I don't need to worry about having short circuited our negotiations.

As soon as I'd sent the message to the designer via Ravelry, I received an email from Ravelry's legal counsel, informing me that he had received "a valid takedown notice as required under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act ("DMCA") alleging that several patterns you intend to release, [snip], infringe upon the copyright of another Ravelry user.  Please be advised, that in the event you post these patterns on Ravelry, whether for sale or not, I will required to remove the pattern pursuant to the DMCA."

What the heck is the DCMA? you might ask? 

I sure did.  So I looked it up. 

The DCMA is a Federal Law that sprung out of an international treaty negotiated during the Clinton Administration.  Its purpose is to prevent folks from stealing software, videos, music etc. (you know, things that get sent around on the internet or through digital media), and to provide a safe harbor for the companies that make internet service possibe in the first place.  A big chunk of it is involved with things like those DRM features on DVDs and Kindle downloads that prevent you from copying them.  It's more about finding ways to prevent people from spreading copywritten stuff throughout the internet than it is about copyright violations, and the  provisions that are relevant  to the notice I received are the ones that protect internet service providers and web hosts from being sued when people who use their services post things that infringe others' copyrights. (And why is it copyright, copyrights, but copywritten?).

Why exactly do we want to protect the ISPs?

Well... lets assume for the sake of argument that Wilma Wannabe desides that she wants to sell patterns, but can't design her way out of a wet paper sack.  She buys one of Dora Designer's best patterns, takes it home, and types the instructions and charts etc into her own publishing software.  She then posts that pattern for sale on Ravelry and Patternfish and sells it on Etsy.

Technically, Ravelry, Patternfish and Etsy are all infringing Dora Designer's copyright when they send copies of Wanda's pattern out -- since Wanda's pattern is acatually Dora's pattern.  We don't really want Dora to sue Raverly, Patternfish and Etsy, but we do want them to stop selling Wanda's version of the pattern.  If we let Dora and every other copy right holder whose stuff gets put up on these sites sue the webhosts, sooner or later the legal fees and judgment awards will cause them to go under.  And really, how are they supposed to know that Wanda's design isn't her own unless they have someone pore over every design that gets put up to make sure it doesn't match any other design?

So, that's why we want to protect the ISPs... and here's how they do it.

Basically it goes like this.

Person A has some material for which s/he owns the copyrights.

Person B posts some material on a website hosted by Webhost X.  Person A believes that s/he owns the copyright to the material that Person B has posted.

Person A contacts Webhost X, and files a "Take Down Notice".  For a Take Down Notice to be "valid" it must identify the copyrighted work the Person A claims to have been infringed, and it must identify the material that Person A claims to be infringing, along with enough information to let the servie provider (Webhost X) find the material.   It has to provide enough information to let the service provider contact the complaining person (Person A) - like name, address, phone number, email address, etc.  It must also include a statement that says that person sending it is has a "good faith reason to believe" that the material infringes his/her copyright, and/or is not authorized by the copyright owner, and a statement that the information in the notice is accurate and that s/he is either the owner of the copyright s/he claims to have been infringed, or that sh/e is authorized to act on behalf of the owner.  Finally, it has to have a physical or electronic signature.*

Once the Webhost has received a Take Down Notice, the DRCA says the only way they can protect themselves from liability for the infringment, is to promptly take down the allegedly infringing material (this is so that if it is infringing, the copyright holder doesn't continue to suffer damages like lost sales of his own material because people are buying Person B's stuff instead).  However, to avoid liability related to the allegedly infringing person, they must also promptly notify the person who Person A claims is infringing that they've gotten the take down notice.

That's what Ravelry's lawyer was doing.  It makes some sense... but, as Wikipedia points out:

"The DMCA has been criticized for making it too easy for copyright owners to encourage website owners to take down allegedly infringing content and links which may in fact not be infringing. When website owners receive a takedown notice it is in their interest not to challenge it, even if it is not clear if infringement is taking place, because if the potentially infringing content is taken down the website will not be held liable. The Electronic Frontier Foundation senior IP attorney Fred von Lohmann has said this is one of the problems with the DMCA."

Ravelry is no exception.  They make no efforts whatsover to determine whether the material in question actually infringes anyone's rights.  They get a TakeDown Notice, and they pull the material. Their lawyer has been pretty up front about the fact that he just follows the rules, and leaves the determination of whether infringement really has occurred to somebody else.

This is good when Wanda Wannabe posts Dora's pattern.  This is bad when Olivia Originality posts her own pattern and Dora (or Wanda) feel threatened by her creativity and file a DCMA TakeDown Notice even though the design doesn't infringe their copyright.  Unless Olivia is a strong willed person who knows copyright law, the DCMA, and has a lot of confidence in herself, she's likely to just roll over and pull her patterns.  She won't even realize that if she follows the rules, Wanda (or Dora) will have to follow through, and then the Court  will be looking to see if the design infringes

Court?  you say?  Waitaminnit.... when did the courts come into play?

That's for tomorrow, when we discuss what one does if they've received a DCMA Take Down notice from their webhost or ISP.

 

 

*See, PC Watchdog;

 

Firestorms over not very much - part II

As I reported earlier, on Friday, I got a nastigram from another designer who felt threated by a design that I have sent out for testing.  I did my best to play nice, and even compromised on something that didn't really require it, just because I'd rather not fight over an edging.

Here's what happened next.

On Sunday, I slept in, and then went back to taking care of business - tending to Bookworm (who is sick with that evil cough thing), preparing dinner, correcting charts and written patterns both for this garment and another one also in testing, and correcting Ravelry pages to rephrase things that might have created confusion. I didn't get around to looking at messages until after 2:00 that afternoon. 

As it turns out, the fellow who had accused me of infringing on his copyright had written back Sunday morning at 4:00 a.m., insisting that not only did my design share all of the elements of his design, but that, in fact, mine included all of the information necessary to knit his!  My mind boggled.  You can't even get the number of stitches to cast on for his design from my pattern -- I tried dividing my cast on number by his and did't get an even number.  As for the rest -- none of my charts will tell you how to do anything in his design.

Of course, as far as I know, he doesn't have my pattern to look at.  I certainly haven't sent it to him. I assume that he's looked at the various pictures I've posted on Ravelry and/or here and/or Seasons of Lace. Either that, or I have a tester who has forwarded my pattern to him (whoops, more copyright violations, but I'm not going there).  Of course, if he does have a copy, his claims are even harder to comprehend.

Even though he acknowledged that "legally" I "might" be able to claim that my pattern is original, he instisted that it isn't really original.  He demanded that I change the center third of my design, alleging that any such pattern with a beaded plain section could only be perceived as a project based on his design. He said that if I were to do that, my design might be something I could call original.

I realizd that gentle conversation and easy compromise was not going to persuade him that my design was not, in fact his.  So I set about drafting a calm, well reasoned response.

Okay, first I talked to Golf Pro, called a friend and ranted for a while, asked some folks if they saw any similarities and enjoyed their vigorous "no WAY" responses, and drafted an angry letter that sounded more like I was spoiling for a fight than like I was a reasonable person.  I did not, however send that message.

Instead, I ate dinner with my family.  I drove my step-daughter home.  I spent some time with my kids, and thought about this mess. 

Then, I researched, refreshing my knowledge of copyright law, and checking on the prevalence in other patterns of every element of our designs that he claimed was "shared".  It seemed from his message that he beleives that if there were any shared elements in our designs, the only way I could have come up with them would have been to copy them from him. Among the elements he included in his list of "shared elements" was the use of  of bottom up construction. I hoped that with a little evidence and a calm, thorough response, I could resolve this silliness and get on with my life.

I fretted about Bookworm, whose fever was pushing 102 F, and who felt really awful.

It comes as no surprise to me that I didn't finsh my response before it was clearly past time to go to bed.  Instead of sending the still slightly vituperative, and still far to wordy response, I set it aside to wait until I could send something civil, cogent, and useful, and went to bed.

On Monday morning, I had a meeting with a client who has asked me to design and knit a sweater.  But before I went, I logged onto Ravelry to clear up one minor detail that I'm sure was driving the designer in question nuts.  You see, when I'd decided to abandon knitting his thing, and frogged it, I didn't delete the project page I'd put up on Ravelry.  That page had one picture:  the first 1/2 inch of the garment on the needle, resting on the copy of his pattern.  Instead of deleting that page, I just started editing al the information (changed the name, changed the pattern, changed the yarn, the yardage, the notes -- and added new pictures of the new garment as I went).  I forgot, however, to delete the old cast on pictur.  My total bad.  On Monday morning, I deleted that picture from my Ravelry project page.

And then, I dashed off to meet my client, and took her to the local yarn store to let her   choose her yarn.  We spent a couple of hours poring over yarns, and  discussing the disadvantages of using yarns with vastly differnt care requirements.  Finally, she chose her yarns, and we finished the spcific planning of her sweater over lunch.

After lunch, I tetched Kitty from school, and came home to finish revising my response to the designer.  I worked on it for a bit, and sent the draft to a friend upon whom I rely to point out when I'm being way  too wordy.  Then I had dinner, and tweaked the response based on my friend's wise advise.

Monday evening, I sent my response to the designer. It was calm, complimentary, and thorough.  It included examples of at least three other designs that shared each of the elements he cited as reasons why my design was just a copy of his.  Many of these designs predated his pattern.  Some certainly predated his life (one was from the 1880's).  I pointed out that neither he nor I have exclusive rights to any of those elements.  I included examples of several other designs that shared all of the elements that our designs share, and pointed out that neither of us has exclusive rights to those juxtapositions.

Again, I thought I was done. Until I saw the message he'd sent earlier that day (I think it arrived at my Ravelry inbox while I was out with my client).  In this one, he noted that I had removed the picture, and said that since I had been "active on Raverly" but had not responded to his message of the day before, he was withdrawing his "offer to compromise", and making a formal complaint to Ravelry.

I'm trying to be flattered that he considers me to be such a threat.  But I'm really annoyed that I spent so much of the my weekend on a person who can't even wait one full business day for someone to respond to such a serious accusation.

 And it gets "better".....

Firestorms over not very much - part I

This past weekend has been far less fun than it should have been.  And though it means that this will be along, verbose, picture free post, I kind of have to talk about it. 

In fact, this is gonna be so long that I think I'll divvy it up into several posts.  I'll try to put something fun in the midst of it all ... but I'll also wind up discussing some Federal laws that may or may not affect you, and the ways in which they're good -- and bad.

The good:  on Saturday, I drove Kitty to a tiny town about 45 minutes away so that she could participate in the State's Music Educators Association "contest".  She performed her piece beautifully (the best I'd heard it); she nailed her scales.  The judge awarded her a I (best level -- there are four).  I am proud -- she reports that her knees started shaking during the first scale, and didn't stop til she sat down after the performance. (One more reason that long skirts are a good wardrobe choice -- no one can see shaky knees).

Also good: I've finished, bathed, and photographed a hat I've designed.  My tester found an error that I've fixed, and I have high hopes that this will soon be out in the world earning money for Leukemia Research!

The bad:  I've been accused of copyright infringement on a pattern that isn't even published yet, by a man who seems to be stalking my Ravelry page.  He first wrote to me on Friday evening, declaring himself to be very upset that I'd anounced my intentions to publish what he claims is a version of his pattern as my own original design, and was further dismayed that I had "released" what he claimed to be his copywritten materials to my test kntters. He demanded that I withdraw my pattern from my test knitters, and offered a thinly veailed threat to go public with his accusations if I did not do so.  (Basically, he said if I pulled my design, he'd keep our conversation private).

I have, over the past several months, freely acknowledged that I was inspired to create my design by starting, and then rejecting, his pattern.  His pattern is simple, elegant, understated, and a quick small knit that uses one skein of yarn and a few beads.  I tried it, and found it not to my tastes, since I like larger things of that nature, and get bored, both while knitting and later when looking at, things that have too much plain garter stitch. However, I know that lots of folks like things like that, and was happy to advertise his little pattern freely.  I certainly gave him enough plugs (both here and elsewhere) that I'll be surprised if he didn't garner at least one, if not several, sales from my efforts.

Meanwhile, I started over with a new design, destined to be a huge garment, and added things willy nilly as I went. I did go with the basic outline -- bottom up.  A little lace (my lace pattern though) to start things off.  It's a pretty standard construction, and a pretty standard set of elements.  I've got a swack of examples of this concept, and this pairing of elements, from many designers over many years.  But in the end, my design is more complex, quite large, uses well over a thousand beads, and does not include a single chart that I did not design myself.

I explained this to him on Friday evening, remarking that "inspired by" doesn't mean copied.  I pointed out all of the lovely things about his pattern that mine doesn't share.  And I gently pointed out all of the ways that my design differs from his. (A quick summary of the materials lists ought to be his first clue:  His Design - 350 yards of cobweb weight yarn, ~250 beads; My Design: 1150 yards of lace-weight yarn, 1600+ beads).

Then, in the interests of good fellow-ship, and the hope that a courteous compromise early would smooth all waters and alleviate his fears, I offered to go back to make extra special sure than none of his specific elements remained in my design as they appeared in his, and to change any that I found that did.

On Saturday morning, I had a previous engagement, and so did not do anything about the whole chart thing.  On Saturday afternoon, I was off with musicians, listening to my daughter play clairnet before the the judge, and then waiting for her score to be posted.

Saturday evening, I pulled his pattern from my files, pored over his charts and my charts, and decided that even though my bottom edging is a fairly common one, they were close enough to each other that some one might be confused about that.  The edging I had originally used can be found, among other places, in Nicky Epstein's Knitting on the Edge, which was published five years before his design was released.  However, I was still more interested in peaceful cooperative solutions than in a fight over whether he could copyright that edging.So, I changed the edging chart, corrected the written pattern, and contacted my testers to inform them of the change and the reason for it. 

I figured I'd been more generous than necessary, but also went to bed moderately confident that the problem had been resolved, and I could go back to double checking the written patterns for two things out in testing land.

 

Falling in Love ... with my software

I mentioned in my last post that I'm designing a hat for a friend whose friend has leukemia.

As is my way, I'm writing up that design, and I'm using a moderately new-to-me bit of software called Intwined Studio. I bought it last summer because it has some features that my version of Knit Visualizer doesn't have.  While it is entirely possible that the new version of the software has what I want, the price of upgrading was more than I could afford.  When I found Intwined Studio for remarkably less than the upgrade price, well, I succumbed.

I've used Intwined Studio for a few things.  Until now, I kind of thought of them as mostly similar.  I liked a few things about Knit Visualizer better (like the ease of exporting the charts to an image that is then easily inserted into my Word or Publisher file, and/or simply sending on its own to a tester), and a few things about Intwined better (like the ease with which one can drag a stitch icon over an area and have the chart show it all changed instead of having to select each separate stitch one at a time, and the fact that it's legends aren't long and narrow, occupying a ton of vertical space on a page).  But today ... today I learned a new trick that is making me giddy.

You see, I often "create" stitches to work in my textured designs.  Whereever possible, I incorporate decreases into cables so they're inivisible.  I've never encountered a charting software that let me do that with any grace at all.  Until now.

Today I learned how to make my own stitches, and create the icons that form them on the charts -- and edit the way they show up in the Key (or legend). This will not only dramatically simplify writing cable patterns for me, it will also let me do beading things more easily.

I'm in love!

I'm dizzy with delight!

I'm going back to working up my hat chart with all of its invisible decreases, happy in the knowledge that I don't HAVE to write that all out even for the charted version.  And then, I'll be sending that chart out to my first tester!

 

W00t - money for leukemia research here we come.