On Copyright
I think that it’s important to talk about inspiration and its head-on collision with copyright laws. I am only interested in publishing patterns on Popknits that are originals which means that you must not have taken an old pattern and just changed the yarn and re-tooled it. When i talk about the old Vogue Knitting magazines i have around, I’m most influenced and inspired by their silhouettes or colors or construction. I would never take these patterns and plagiarize them and neither should any designer who submits to Popknits. I’m not a huge fan of copyright, actually. I think that it mainly restricts people from thinking freely, but that doesn’t mean that i don’t respect it. If the pattern or item that you gain inspiration from is copyrighted, please do not knock it off and send it in for submission. My main advice is to watch films, go to a museum or two, read some old books or magazines, take a walk in your neighborhood and look at vintage motifs that speak to you and use that to design something that’s vintage-inspired.
It’s also important to note that copyright exists on items newer than 1923 (see this copyright information page for more information.) If you see a very old pattern from before this time and want to use it as inspiration for a modern take on the garment, then I’m more apt to consider it for publication if you can provide the original pattern (so that we can see what the copyright implications would be) and it’s different enough from the original. I’ll speak to designers individually about this upon pattern submission. Thanks!
Posted by gleek on 04/23 at 06:37 PM in Pre-Launch Information
Warm Welcome
I’m happy to say that Popknits has received a very warm welcome in the Ravelry forums. I posted over there yesterday and have been answering some questions which i think that I’ll reiterate here for the sake of clarity.
- By “vintage” I mean from the 1800s to the 1970s. I’m not a huge fan of the 80s or its fashion statements (sorry if this offends some! But I doubt not many..) so I think that we’ll forget the 80s ever happened on this site. There are many fabulous design inspirations to look to otherwise so I’m sure we’ll get some great vintage submissions!
- You can feel free to either submit a proposal or go straight to the finish line and submit a finished piece. Either is fine with me.
- I hope to eventually have some yarn support for designers but I’m fairly certain we won’t have any for the Fall issue. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take yarn or fiber as payment for ad space. Though I LOVE yarn, my apartment simply cannot hold it all. I hope to have ad rates up by the end of the week. Stay tuned!
- A Ravelry forum member mentioned that it would be great to get someone to write up how to best interpret vintage knitting patterns (i.e. difference in needle size, yarn weight and brands, and antiquated knitting terms) and i think this is a FABULOUS idea! In fact, anyone who wants to submit such a piece would have a place of honor in the FAQ and on the Articles landing page and therefore would receive a lot of traffic to their article submission and their website. If I had the time to write up a glossary, I would and make it a permanent part of the site but I’ll have to leave that to my readers. Please contact me if you’re interested in such an endeavor!
I’ve already received a few inquiries/proposals so it’s good to know that Popknits can fill this niche for knitters. Hope to hear from you all soon.
Posted by gleek on 04/22 at 09:19 PM in General News, Pre-Launch Information
An Introduction
Hello Everyone!
Welcome to Popknits! I’m very excited to show off Popknits to the world today. It’s been a long time and coming (about two years!) and I couldn’t be happier about the final timing. Just so you know, I’ll post more about the submissions, advertising opportunities, and launch details in the coming weeks. So just hang in there with me and we’ll get this show up and running in time for cooler knitting weather in the fall.
P.S. If you subscribe to this news feed with your RSS reader, you’ll get the fastest Popknits information available. Thanks for stopping by!
Posted by gleek on 04/18 at 11:10 AM in General News, Pre-Launch Information
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