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 spend my holidays scouring village charity shops, as inner city London seems to have no knitting patterns at all in charity shops (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.
Also a few of the patterns are from magazines held by the British Library, but only those older than 75 years.
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 2022, anything from pre 1997 is free of copyright. Knitting magazines are slightly different as they contain more than just instructions, so I’m cautious and only post pre- 1952 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.
Email : brooks_caroline@hotmail.com
What happened to those other posts that weren’t about knitting?
They are hidden from the menus, but I still have a lot of posts on other topics from when this was only a personal blog, for example posts about my cats, Agatha Christie, vintage fashion magazines. At the moment the website is too visually cluttered to add them. I really need to learn how to do a better page menu!
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. Eventually all the patterns will be downloadable only after clicking through the pay prompt. This is because so many people were downloading without donating.
Where is the money going?
I do not take any money at all. I fund the website myself (pay for hosting & for the URL & pay WordPress).
All of the donation money goes to a small UK charity called CureDM UK. They fund 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 and pay all the website hosting fees & WordPress fees myself, so they are not taken from your donations.
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 has these annoying adverts
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. If the revenue is high enough, I’ll offer fewer Gumroad donate and download patterns, and more free download patterns. At the moment it’s just ruining the site I think, so if it doesn’t seem worth it, they will be removed within a couple of weeks.
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