Let’s Talk About Vintage Knitting Patterns
Plus, an update on my two sweaters in progress
I read the following in a Substack article earlier this week:
I bought this digital pattern file from Etsy, Sirdar 8195. As a side note, how great is that business idea, to buy old vintage patterns, scan them, and sell the digital file? Niche but limited initial upfront costs and no real ongoing maintenance. Genius.1
Not genius—illegal. A quick search on Etsy will show you dozens of sellers offering pdfs of scanned “vintage” patterns for knitting, crochet, and sewing. They use their own pattern stash or buy collections of printed patterns at thrift shops and estate sales, scan them, and sell pdfs you can download. Often the photo in the listing is cropped to remove the name of the yarn company that published the pattern. In almost all cases, selling these pdfs is a violation of copyright law.
NOTE: I am not an attorney, and none of this is intended as legal advice. If you are an attorney and spot something I’ve got wrong, please let me know in the comments. I’ll be happy to correct any of this information, and I’ll be grateful for your expertise.
In the US, UK, and Australia, the rights to these patterns are protected by law until 70 years after the death of the author (or the last surviving author if there is more than one). For anonymous works, or works made for hire, copyright protection in the US extends for 95 years from the first publication.
The pattern purchased by the knitter quoted above is still available from Sirdar, a venerable British yarn manufacturer, through their website. While the listing does not show the date of publication, they are calling it 80’s Family Hat or Hood. This pattern is surely still protected by copyright.
It is easy to assume that something available for sale is being sold legally. But Etsy does not police listings for copyright violations. It is up to the owner of the rights to first identify the infringement and then file a complaint (with documentation) asking Etsy to remove the listing.
I have found copies of my own patterns being offered for sale on Etsy. I have found patterns from books I authored being sold on Amazon as eBooks or “print on demand” with AI generated covers and product descriptions. Getting these listings taken down is a game of whack-a-mole for which I don’t have time. There are simply too many people who think it’s OK to profit by selling copies of work to which they do not have the rights. While they may never face any legal consequences, they are still breaking the law. And they are taking money out of the pockets of those who invested in the creation of the work.
Please do not support these illegal pattern sales by purchasing pdfs of scanned patterns, even if the pattern is out of print or the original publisher is out of business. The original creator or publisher of the pattern has a legally protected right to control the sale and distribution of that work.
Just because you want it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have it.
By the way…
While researching this post, I came across this delightful 1960’s era industrial video about Sirdar. They show both the yarn manufacturing process and the work that goes into pattern production. Enjoy this little trip back in time.
Waffle Pullover Update
I continue to work my way down the body of my Waffle Pullover. It’s not a quick project, but I’m not loving it any less as I live with it in a basket next to my chair in the living room. By next week (fingers crossed), I should be ready to start the sleeves and will be adding information on adjusting the sleeve shaping to suit my gauge to the page with all my notes on how I’m modifying this pattern to work with a thinner yarn and a smaller gauge than originally called for.
Atlas Pullover Update
This sweater is an adaptation of a design I recently created for my friends at Green Mountain Spinnery. I expect the pattern will be released within the next couple of months (certainly before Rhinebeck). I’ll show you photos and links as soon as it’s published. I’ve finished the body and am nearly done with the first sleeve. I’m just tickled with the way the colors are playing together. The yarn is Modern Daily Knitting Atlas in Navy, Leek, Skyline, Whisper, and Tutu.
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of its publication, I recently listened to Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. It had been many years since I read this book. I had forgotten how extraordinary it is.
Mrs Dalloway is a novel without much of a plot. It follows Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class Englishwoman in her early 50s, as she spends a day preparing to host a party. It takes place in central London in the 1920s.
Mrs Dalloway has often been described as the transcription of a stream of consciousness. But that consciousness is like a butterfly drifting through a park, landing first on one shoulder, riding along for a while, then flitting to another. We begin in Clarissa’s thoughts as she heads out to buy flowers for the party. As she observes a chauffeur-driven car from the window of the florist’s shop, we see that car through the thoughts of the people on the street, then we land with a couple (he a shell-shocked veteran of The Great War, she his young Italian bride) who separate from the crowd and wander into Green Park. Through these shifting perspectives, we glimpse fears and memories, hopes and dreams.
Woolf’s genius in this novel is her accuracy in recording how the mind works. Thoughts jump from one topic to the next, then return to obsessive worries. We linger in the past, picking at old wounds, wondering what became of old flames.
If it’s been a while since you read Mrs Dalloway (or if you’ve never had the pleasure), let this anniversary prompt you to spend some time with this exceptional piece of work.
By the way…
Did you know Virgina Woolf was a knitter? This portrait of the writer, painted by her sister Vanessa Bell, is in the collection of London’s National Portrait Gallery.
Things that caught my eye…
I was honored to be asked for a virtual coffee date by
for her Substack Everyday Knitter. You can join us here.Come along for a peek inside a Parisian atelier (entirely staffed by women) whose mission is to repair and restore old books. If only they had an opening for an apprentice!
The Serbian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale features an ethereal canopy of suspended panels knit from wool. Solar powered motors will slowly unravel the panels over the 6-month run of the exhibition. It is gorgeous in the photos; I can only imagine what it is like to stand beneath that canopy. Thanks to
’ The Wool Channel for the tip.As a lover of audiobooks, I enjoyed this brief history of the audiobook from PBS’s American Experience.
As always, I’m grateful you’ve chosen to give me a bit of your time this week. Continue the conversation: I most often recommend contemporary fiction, but every now and then I enjoy reading (or re-reading) a classic. How about you? Would you like me to recommend more classic literature, or do you prefer we stick to newer books? Tell me about it in the comments.
I’m not going to identify the author of this post because I think this was an innocent case of ignorance of copyright law. I commented on her post, and she has edited the text to acknowledge what she now knows. I have no interest in calling anybody out.
I worked in a LYS for 11 years. Almost daily we interacted with 1 or more customers on issues of pattern copyright. [This was pre-digital pattern era.] Once a customer came in looking for a specific pattern that a store owner in Florida had given to her free with yarn purchase. She lost the pattern and came to us for a replacement. When we explained that it was not a free pattern, that we could not "give" it to her, and she would have to purchase it, she was outraged. Explanations of coyright fell on deaf ears, and she demanded over and over to be given the pattern. Many times we caught people trying to take photos of patterns instead of purchasing.
The only thing that worked [mostly] was explaing that patterns represent someone's livelihood.
copywriting, patterns, knitting has been a bug of mine. My last job in publishing was that I had to check all the art for books. I can't tell you how many snake, birds, mammals, insects pictures I reviewed. Think on the order of thousands. Sometimes people would take pictures of posters and say it was a particular bird. Yes it was the bird but the photo sent off alarm bells because it looked like a poster, photograph, it was too perfect. I did alert the powers that be, but who knows.
When someone asks me to make a copy of a pattern for them I reply that it is a paid pattern and they have to pay me so I can pay the creator. I hear "no one will know, I don't have the money you have, I don't care." For some people I have paid the designer out of my pocket, I refuse to "just print them a copy," and as I age I find that I also forget to make "their" copy. When I talk to them about copyright they simply do not want to hear it. I think to myself "you are a thief, you will not get anything from me." It also amazes me that these are the people who can go on international cruises, have the latest electronic gadgets, will not chip in for snacks or travel the world. MIND.Blown.
I have experience a lot of people demanding free this or that. They are every age and I feel like it is getting worse. Everyone wants free, but someone has to pay for your freebie. This concept is completely foreign to them. It is stealing because you think you are entitled, too poor, too rich, or just want it. Frankly it angers me greatly.