Monday, December 3, 2007

knitting on television

look knitters this is what a tough police superintendant looks like on national danish television these days. for a whole year this woman in this sweater has filled our sunday nights. well she has one more quite similar. it is designed by top-notch icelandic designers gudrun and gudrun and has caused a lot of discussion in danish newspapers and knitting blogs. the owner of a small lys published a pattern for the sweater and the designers wanted to sue her for violating their copyright to the sweater pattern. the discussion of course was: how can a raglan with nordic star patterns be copyrighted by anyone alive today.
one can buy the 'original' sweater (which i believe is out of unspun icelandic) for the nice price of usd 550. and i do think it is paying respect to knitting that is goes for that price. it might take a little week to knit so the hourly pay is second to none. the discussion about copyright is difficult since i think it is important how you space the stars and the choice of colours.
the sweater i am knitting right now is a design by me, by elizabeth zimmermann, by barbara walker, by beaverslide dry goods or maybe by none of us.
but isn't it lovely that today's heroine wears handknits.

on friday i went out with a few other ladies. one was wearing a faroese sweater knit by her mother. i admired it very much and she gave it to me and said smell!!! no one else but knitters could get a kick out of smelling sheep. oh well maybe those who cut the sheep in the australian outback. the rest of the ladies looked a little puzzled....

i am now at the point where i have to join the body and the sleeves and then, elizabeth promises, it will go really fast due to the decreasing. so now i have to figure out which kind of paired decreases would be prettier. and then there will be the part that i am looking more forward to than everything else. the tubular cast off. does any one know if it can be done on circs or to be more precise when knitting in the round?????

6 comments:

Shan said...

I agree re: the copyright on a nordic star design on a raglan sweater.

I like the apparent lack of makeup in that photo. No matter how stern and policey they get over here in N.America, they are always fluttering long black eyelashes and smoky shadow, glistening lips and smooth hair.

I don't know about the tubular cast off...never knit a top down sweater before. Sorry!

Shan said...

Oh, by the way: by "they are always fluttering" above, I meant female leads on television. Not actual female police officers.

Mette said...

I agree on the prizing, but I doubt the copyright (anyone knows how the case turned out?). Gudrun og Gudrun are from the Faroe Islands, btw ;-)

tiennieknits said...

Does she seriously wear the same sweater in every episode? Such a difference from US TV where everyone seems to be such a fashion plate. I don't know how "real" people would be in different outfits all the time.

Tina - omme i London said...

I think it is absolutely hilarious that this rather ordinary sweater has made fashion headlines - and particularly that someone tried to claim the pattern as "theirs"!

As for the smell of wool; half of the knitting is in the smelling - surely? :)

Sigga Sif said...

Funny, they're also showing Forbrydelsen on Sunday evenings in Iceland.

I also noticed the sweater immediately and it was very interesting to read about the story here! I noticed that in the last episode she had gotten a new one. I wonder if it's the same designers.