What Does “Personal Use Only” Mean?

Often when you buy knitting patterns (and sometimes you see it on free knitting patterns, too) you’ll see a statement somewhere on the pattern or website that says the patterns are for personal use only or some variation on that idea.

The idea behind such statements is that designers don’t want people profiting from their original ideas, their intellectual property.

But of course such statements are pretty impossible to enforce, because we can’t track down every person who ever bought or downloaded one of our patterns to make sure they only made the project for themselves or as gifts.

On very rare occasions people have emailed me to ask if they can make items to sell from my patterns, and I’m always glad to have them ask, but I never expect it. I’m sure more people are using my patterns to make items to sell than have ever thought to contact me, and for the most part I don’t mind it.

There’s a really great article from Carol Sulkoski on the Craft Industry Alliance website about this issue and whether such statements are in any way enforceable. The answer is probably not.

For one thing, the clause is usually only found on the pattern itself, which you don’t see until after you’ve bought it, so it can’t be assumed the buyer consented to the restriction when they chose to buy it.

Copyright law applies to the pattern itself, so someone can’t buy it, put their name on it and sell it as their own, but things get murkier when it comes to items produced with purchased patterns.

I have a lot of sympathy for designers, who spend so much time making their patterns (believe me, I know what goes into even a simple pattern!), and who sometimes sell items made with their patterns and want to be the only person able to do so, but that’s not the way the law works.

This is a really interesting topic if you are a designer or you knit items from patterns made by other people. I’d love to know what you think, on either side of the debate.

(By the way the pattern in the picture is my Bulky Stockinette Throw, available for free on Ravelry.)

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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