tears aren't good for mohair

I'm absolutely beside myself in this moment. Tears streaming down my face...right onto my alpaca/mohair WIP...and every knitter knows that tears aren't good for mohair.

What happened? A ridiculously senseless violation of copyright, that's what. Actually two senseless violations, if I'm really going to get into it...and it appears that I am. 

Someone posted one of my patterns in the "notes" section of their Raverly project page. Not the link to my pattern, but the actual pattern...every last detail. All four lines of the main stitch repeat, and the decrease sequence for the crown! She altered maybe two lines, but other than that, she essentially re-published my pattern in her project notes.

I mean, seriously. WTF? This is my livelihood. Designing hand-knits and writing patterns is how I make ends meet. How could any knitter do this to another knitter?

And this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Just a few weeks ago, the PDF file for one of my free patterns was lifted from this very website, then used by a yarn store to provide direct downloads from their own site (with the purchase of their yarn)!

The copyright statement on my patterns isn't hidden...it's easy to see and to read (but apparently impossible to comply with). It says that cold comfort patterns are for personal, non-commercial, use. What's not clear about that? Just because something is free, doesn't mean the rights don't belong to someone. 

When I provide a pattern for free, it certainly doesn't mean that I didn't spend a great deal of time, money, and effort creating it. When I share my work for free, it's because I'm trying to share the joy of knitting with others. It's because I want to spread the knitty love, and help others find peace and healing through this amazing thing we do with two sticks and some string.

So when people take advantage of that, or don't use their heads and re-print paid pattern details, it makes me cry. And it makes me want to give up designing...just go back to knitting for my own pleasure. For every little triumph, there's just SO much B.S. that it's sucking all the joy out of it. 

​Excuse me now...I have to go blow-dry my shawl.