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Yes, in order to comply with world wide legislation in different ways, I, Vintage Knitting Pattern Archive (VKPA) have to inform you that this website is helped by products from Google and they (as a third-party) legally need you to know about their privacy policies and to consent to their cookies, which are used to serve ads on this site & to analyse where the users are from & which pages are most popular. I (VKPA) never see your name, address or email address. The privacy policy of this site is below. But Google’s policies are also available to read and consent or not consent to.
Where are the patterns from?
Charity shops. Vintage knitting pattern shopping is not easy. I might visit 6 or 7 before I find a single pattern and then you must always ask, as for some reason they’ll be kept in a folder in a back room. Mostly they have 1980’s patterns, but eventually a gem will be found. I have spent previous holidays scouring village charity shops, as inner city London seems to have no knitting patterns. These are also called Op Shops or Goodwill is you are abroad. I don’t take patterns from any other website or any online groups. My other source is the British Library, though they restrict the amount of pages you can copy held by the British Library and also they must be older than 75 years, so mostly I own all the patterns posted here.
How can you share these patterns? What about copyright?
I am in the UK and here knitting patterns fall under industrial design copyright law, as they are a set of instructions to make something and not prose. Industrial design is covered by copyright for 25 years, so right now in 2023, anything from pre 1998 is free of copyright. Knitting magazines are slightly different as they contain more than just instructions, so I’m cautious and only post pre- 1953 magazines.
Do you accept donations of knitting patterns?
Yes, I love donations, but as I’m disabled I find it tricky to collect big boxes. If it’s from a London area where I have friends, they can be persuaded to collect on my behalf.
Why aren’t you posting regularly?
I have hEDS (hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome) and I’m often too achey to update the website.
How can I contact you?
Email : brooks_caroline@hotmail.com
What happened to those other posts that weren’t about knitting?
They have all been deleted.
It’s asking me to pay for the patterns. I thought this was free?
You can choose to donate zero or look at the patterns I haven’t yet added the pay form to. This is because so many people were downloading without donating. However the donations through this method, using Gumroad, haven’t proved that popular, so I trialled using Google Ads to fund the site. Great news was that in three months I paid the site fees, less great news is the ads can be very irritating and intrusive, mainly because it’s a whole area I’m not that familiar with. Strangely once the site had adverts, I stopped receiving any donations, so now I’ll slowly remove all those pesky forced donation boxes. But all purchase will remain with Gumroad, so if you need to download them again, that will be available.
Where is the money going?
I didn’t take any money at all until January 2023 when I found I couldn’t afford to self fund the website myself (pay for hosting & for the URL & pay for WordPress to assist me making the site). Now the first few months of the year all the ad revenue will cover those costs and the other 9 or 10 months, it will go to my chosen charity.
The charity I supported at first was a big national Muscular Dystrophy charity, but now it is smaller, newer, more specialised UK charity called CureDM UK. This is their website: https://congenitalmyotonicdystrophy.org/
They fund only research into a rare form of muscular dystrophy that my best friend died aged only 39.
You can learn more about the charity and the condition here https://www.congenitalmyotonicdystrophy.org/.
The charity is registered with the Charities Commision under no. 1191217 (https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/5162609)
They also have a Just Giving page if you want to donate without downloading a knitting pattern. https://www.justgiving.com/curemyotonicdystrophyukcharity
I do not work for the charity.
If you pay via PayPal or through the page links on Gumroad, it goes monthly directly to their account.
What is Gumroad?
Gumroad is an external website, ie. not owned by me, that allows me to safely accept donations without processing the card payments myself and delivers pdfs of the knitting pattern scans on my behalf. It’s a great help to me as this is a one woman not for profit operation.
I’ve seen your patterns on another site and someone is charging for them
Yes, I know. Sometimes someone just owns the same pattern, sometimes they have pinched it from here.
The website now DOESN’T have these annoying adverts
I have removed them until I can work out how to have a few ads and not bombard people with click throughs and ruin the site. Since I removed them, people are spending more time looking at more knitting patterns and that makes me happy!
Yes, and I’m very sorry. In my current financial situation, I need to cover the hosting charges & pay for business account on WordPress & etc etc, to keep the site up. So I’m experimenting with adverts from Google ads. I’m astounded by how much more profitable the site was with adverts, so I will compensate by adding more and more free to download patterns. I hope it isn’t ruining things too much.
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Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. This service is not intended to save any email addresses, IP addresses or other data on legitimate users.
Is my data safe?
Absolutely. Under UK legislation & GDPR I promise never to sell your email address. Gumroad has safety built in, so I never hold your email address or bank details. My usage of this website does not track your usage other than to avoid spam comments. If you download a pattern or subscribe for updates, I will be told your email address, but I do not maintain a list or database and will not sell or misuse your address.
Who we are:
Our website address is: https://vintageknittingpatternarchive.com. It is run by one enthusiastic vintage knitter. The purpose is to share knitting patterns and raise money for charity (see above for details).
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