Tweak? Design?

One of my email lists recently asked 'Are you a designer? Do you ever want to be a designer?' as their Question of the Week and I had to ask.. So what /is/ design? Where does tweaking end and designing begin?

It is a good question, and one that comes up often on the knitting lists. Especially in the context of how many changes do you need to make on a basic sweater to call it your own and be able to claim intellectual property of it. There really are some basics that don't change from one piece to another.. is changing the colour a design choice? The yarn? The gauge? The fit? Adding short rows? A little pattern instead of knitting it plain? Enough of these changes and you'd never think it was the same sweater or shawl, but how many is enough?

I don't know the answer. I don't think of myself as a designer, but I equally don't feel obligated to knit a pattern as written. I take it, I make it my own. I've often wondered how this is different from say.. a pianist who plays Mozart. They take someone else's music and puts their own mark upon it and it becomes their own. They are an artist.. by common words.. But that's a whole different rant. *grin*

I did, however, spend the weekend playing D&D and knitting. And knitting and playing D&D. My paladin is level 4 and I'm down to 290 stitches in a row. I need to get to 218 (ish.. see comments about tweaking). 9 more decrease rows. Wow. That's a reasonable number! We will see if it's long enough at that point, there may be a couple more rows tucked in. No picture today, too tired to fight with it to get a good one, and I stopped mid row. I will try and have one for tomorrow, I promise!