Ecclesiastes Says:

Original design?

“There is nothing new under the sun.” Just where does that leave us when it comes to our “original” knitting designs? I have said before that I much prefer the knitting aspect of the art to the design end of things. That is because I can never decide if what I have created is “original” or not. I can knit a little tweedy sweater jacket with patch pockets and contrast piping, and call it an original design, but Coco Chanel might disagree. And, if I adapt a pattern from a stitch pattern book—add a stitch or two, or run the pattern horizontally instead of vertically, is it original, or is it from a book. AND do I give credit for the stitch pattern to the person who wrote the book, or did she/he get it from another source? I know that volumes have been written in answer to these questions, but the bottom line is this…there is nothing new under the sun.

All of this leads to the fact that I am about to knit this simple stitch pattern in a sock, from a stitch pattern book:
Row 1: k2, p2
Row 2: p1, k2, p1
Row 3: p2, k2
Row 4: k1, p2, k1
I will not be posting a pattern when I finish because I don’t know if it is an original or an adaptation. Anyway, it may be a pretty design, but it’s nothing new. So says Ecclesiastes.

BTW, friend Kris at Little Bits Designs is having a contest. She is a designing guru. She knows all about original designs, and is offering one to the lucky winner who tells her a story about why she/he needs a specially designed sock pattern. Go ahead, tell her a whopper! She will love it! (I told her the dog ate my vest pattern).