So I do have something to share today. First I was being a good little girl, staying on point, making the sold pieces, but as I predicted I got bored. I decided to use some hand dyed thread to make another of Jane's flurry snowflakes, this time as a gift for an older lady that tried to learn tatting from me. Well, she did learn and then promptly forgot, but that's another story. As I rounded the side on the snowflake I became increasingly intrigued with just the tips. They would make great earrings...great clock hand earrings. I knew I really shouldn't muck with a pattern that didn't belong to me, but I couldn't help myself. This is the first one I made in the same hand dyed thread.
Then I thought, you know it does look like a clock hand, but the short one. I really ought to make the long one to match. This one took a bit more fiddling yo get just right. In fact I went through four iterations of the design. I know there are only three pictured, the first one was that bad. By the end I was working the inner round separate from the outer, but I think that gives it better symmetry. The last version is on the right here and is likely the one I'll stop with.
Now the sad bit, I won't be making these for sale at all. Since so much of the inspiration and design belongs to someone else, it was not meant to be. Let's just call it an exercise in adapting. I might of course start from scratch, excising the original design from my brain and trying my own clock hand since I have become fond of the idea. Hopefully though I become so busy that I haven't the time to worry about it. This is another reason I do try to stay away from modern patterns as I tend to get every pattern I work under my skin and my natural inclination is to adapt them. I hope that you enjoyed looking a them though. I know I enjoyed making them.
Now it's back to a that remaking and the sales rain down dance as I have spent far too much money on the holiday gifts that are starting to be delivered and I must sell enough to justify my gifting. You hear that Internet Sales Fairy...send sales...please. I have inserted the requisite kitty picture offering. I hope that it is acceptable.
Thank you very much for respecting my work and my wishes. As I said to you privately it hurts me to say 'no' to somebody but I didn't want to open the floodgates for other people doing similar but without the politeness and friendship which you have shown.
ReplyDeleteDidn't one of your collars/necklaces have some lovely points to play with? What if you started with that point to make the clock hands? Of course, my thoughts went to 'why not go digital?', but I have that kind of humor.
ReplyDeleteInspiration is a funny thing. Everything we see, hear and touch prompts us to change it in some way to meet our own preferences. We can't help it. And this is where I think the copyright laws have failed. They are meant to protect original work and I understand that, but they also stifle creativity, IMO. The internet has exaggerated it simply by being so accessible. None of us like to have someone else take a design we've literally sweated out and profit from it with absolutely no effort on their part and yet....it seems to me there has to be a better way. I know there was a guideline of sorts, saying if the design was changed by at least 30% or something, then it was considered a new design, but that has clearly not worked.
ReplyDeleteWe're each unique and create uniquely. I was reading one of Yarn Harlot's books last night about watching people knit, the history of knitting, how many zillions of people knit and things have been knitted and yet, in her observation of watching others knit, not a single person knitted exactly the same as another.
Well...instead of blathering on here...I should write up a post on my own blog!
Did want to compliment you on your integrity in spite of all my digressing!
The little clock hand looks like an ankh to me :)
ReplyDeleteIs the internet sales faerie really swayed by kitty pictures? Guess I need to go take more photos of my cats!