Tweedy

This week's hat: Tweedy.  The yarn is called Milarrochy Tweed and this has a tweedy look to it.  I have alternated panels of broken rib with panels of dogtooth check.  Then the crown is just little squares and rapid decreases.  This one fits better than the other two and is very cosy as the ribbing makes for a thicker fabric.

In my many years as an English teacher I must have read the play "The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew" many times.  In it a diverse group of characters set out to paint a basket of eggs for the market to a time deadline.  The actual egg-painter produces his usual quota of professional eggs, the quixotic Mike Magpie produces a few works of great imagination and the hero, Sir Oblong Fitz Oblong, knocks out a large quantity of rather ordinary eggs.  

Looking at the entries for the hat competition one can see all these qualities on display.  There are certainly some very polished efforts and one or two quirky works of genius.  Mine are at the Oblong end of the spectrum. I realise that, although I don't often knit to a pattern these days, what I habitually do is bodge together bits from a range of sources.  This is fine when it's an item for one's own use but can hardly be done for a competition.

And yet...  I do wonder what kind of copyright applies to collections of patterns such as Barbara Walker's first book.  Or what about Co Spinhoven's charts for Celtic patterns?  If you corner the market in charting out these designs, can no one else use them in a design?

While thinking up ideas for these hats, I wondered about knitting in some text and came up with some catchphrases - "Walkies" was a case in point.  Looking on Ravelry, I find that someone has already designed items under that name.  Do they then have copyright on it?

It has to be said that there are thousands of hat patterns out there and the chances of being totally original without being plain outlandish seem pretty remote.