What makes an Original - Original?

I feel like I should be singing, "Oops I knit it again."  over and over and over. 

I've been knitting nonstop since my last little jaunt here.  However, it seems my brain is reluctant to write AND knit.  This is disconcerting.  To say the least.  I fancy myself someone who writes.  A writer.   Because obviously writers, write.  Yet.  Other than morning pages my ability to sit here at a keyboard and actually WRITE has evaporated. 

My ability to sit at my keyboard, peruse twitter, spend hours searching patterns on Ravelry and you know, generally read knit blogs on end -- while knitting -- that skill set is most definitely intact.

No idea what that's about.

And frankly. It pisses me off.

Still.  What I've been thinking in the far recesses of my mind while doing all this mindless perusing and very important knitting is this:

What exactly constitutes an original design?

(remember, I've spent HOURS of my life perusing patterns).

I mean.  If I just sit down with a set of needles and some yummy hand-dye and start knitting and purling away -- every once in a while adding a stitch here and a yarnover there - and eventually end up with something, say, the size of a lap blanket -- is that an original design?

What if, after I've followed a dozen or so different basic mitten patterns and start riffing on colors and ribbing -- all because my brain has moved from auto-pilot to a need to do something to keep it entertained while making the dozenth pair?  Is that, technically, a design?


I'm thinking this may be a lot like writing (ah! A connection).  

It's been said there are "no new ideas" in the world of publishing.  Just new ways of saying things.

You know the classics have been done a billion and a half times (boy meets girl; man's inhumanity to earth; girl doesn't dig boy; the poor shall overcome, etc.)  yet new movies, books and stories are told every day. Right?


Maybe we're drawn to design, like words, that put a new spin on an old classic.  Or use a voice (vision) that allow us to see the same old thing in a new way?  I'm not certain.

This knitting thing has been a passion for much longer than I anticipated last snowy, cold winter when I picked up yarn and needles.  I figured it would get me through the winter and then I'd be done with it.

Knitting has become a way for me to create something out of nothing and I'm starting to think about things like "how would I make that?"  or "could I design something like the shawl I loved in a magazine and combine it with a new stitch pattern that I saw on my stitch a day calendar?"

Questions.

So what do you think?  What constitutes an original design?


And in the meantime, here's some of what I've been knitting:

My take on Ashton Shawlette

 

 

 

Cherry Blossom Boneyard

The start of a Quaking Aspen