Knitting Fevers...and stages

Last Friday, we went to Borders and I picked up Wendy's book. I had had such a blast reading through it. I read out laud the part were she talks about discovering the meaning of the word "stash" and discovering eBay at the same time and how dangerous this combination was... I laugh really hard when I read this part and my husband just said: "Man, you guys are like... Twins" LOL

I also enjoyed reading about the different stages she went through with her knitting as I always think about these things. It made me think about the fevers I got as I discover first, more expensive yarns and patterns from companies like Sirdar or Tahki. I was suddenly going crazy trying to find their patterns and yarns. Then I went into a knitting book fever, then a designing fever, then I discovered Dalegarn and Sadnesgarn, then discovered Alice Starmore and got almost all of her books but since they are so expensive I only kept a couple and sold the others, and now I am in a Knitting Magazine fever. I have dedicated the last month to carefully document and acquire all the issues I can get my hands on of Vogue Knitting, Knitter's and Interwave Knits. (Knitting is such an expensive Hobby...)

The reason I love these magazines is: in Vogue is almost impossible to go wrong, in every issue there are at least two or three things I want to knit and the level of complexity is very high. What I like about Knitter's is that some of them have Elsebeth Lavold patterns never published anywhere else and I am a huge Lavold fan. Unlike Starmore's sweaters, Lavold items are modern while keeping a lot of the traditional techniques and artistry of traditional knitting. Although of course I love and plan to knit some Starmore sweaters as well. I agree with Wendy, as she states in her blog that the quality of this magazine had decreased in the last few years though. However, the issues of the 1990's are worth tracking down specially if you like Aran knitting and cables in general.

Interwave Knits has some outstanding issues although a few are not worth to keep in my opinion, so I just sell the issues I don't like. to my surprise there so many different tastes in knitting, that I have found that there are people willing to buy almost any kind of pattern. As I reflect on this, I realize that even I had change my taste over the last couple of years dramatically as my skills improve and things that I use to like, now I just don't care for. So, there you go, this is my current stage, knitting magazines. What is yours?

Alice Starmore copyrights paranoia

As much as I admire Alice Starmore's work, it is hard to continue being a fan of her when she shows such a paranoia regarding her copyrights.

Just yesterday, eBay removed one of my listings because I had taken pictures of a couple of the designs inside one of her books that was for sale. She took the time to email E-Bay requesting the listing to be removed. Now, the estrange thing is that as far as I understand, you can take pictures of things, what you are not allowed to do is to use for example the picture taken by someone else and use it in your listing. This is what the eBay copy right tutorial says:

"That's right! When you copy a manufacturer's pictures or product description, you're violating its copyright. That's why you should write your own content and take your own pictures."

So, if I took my own pictures, just to describe the book I was selling, how am I violationg copy rights?

I have been an Ebayer for 6 years, when trading knitting patterns (buying or selling) usually you have to see a picture of what your are buying, otherwise how in the world are you going to know if you are going to like it, specially when what you are buying is a book that costs over $150, people should not buy it without seen it first, don't you think?

The Girl from Auntie has disclosed this issue in her blog (see favorite blogs in the right side of my blog). She says that Alice even got to the extreme of asking a Nordic website called traditional knitting, to remove pictures from their gallery of finished items, these where pictures of Alice Starmore Designs that people had knitted. If things keep going this way, pretty soon we won't be allowed to knit her sweaters... In which case, what would be the point on buying her books?

The fact that companies like AMAZON show the inside of their books for sale and even have an option for users to post pictures of the books inside, tells me that maybe Alice is exaggerating a little bit and I really don't see what is she accomplishing by having my listings removed. I am just going to list them right back, this time just with a picture of the cover. So what?

Unlike other type of books, knitting books need to be seen before buying them because other wise you might be investing in patterns or material you are not interested at all.

If you don't want anyone to see your designs, maybe you should make them for your own enjoyment instead of publishing them on a book.