Was this knit designer ripped off?

Florence Spurling is a moderately popular knitwear designer who made her Scout Shawl pattern in 2021. It uses different color work designs "patchworked" together to form a shawl.

Earlier this month a smaller designer named Susan Chin released her Quilt Star Scarf pattern. It has a similar shape and patchwork construction to Spurling's design.

This has lead people to accuse Chin of plagiarism, which Spurling addressed in an instagram post see above and below

(I can't link to the post because Spurling later deleted it)

The scarves obviously have some similarities, but they also have some differences. Here's a list of what's the same and what's different that someone else wrote, speaking of plagiarism :

Both objects use Intarsia and Fair Isle/Stranded colorwork.

Both patterns have multiple blocks in different motifs, joined together as the finished object is worked.

Both patterns have colorwork charts. (Scout > Shawl is in full color; Quilt Star is in greyscale)

The border is not indicated on either pattern's chart.

Suggested Gauge for the two patterns; Scout Shawl suggests 28sts x 30rows for 10cm, using 3.5mm needles. Quilt Star suggests 28sts x 27 rows for 10cm using 2.5mm or 3mm needles.

Finished size for Scout Shawl is 181cm, 37cm deep

Finished size for Quilt Star is 150cm, 35cm deep

Scout Shawl relies on 5 colors and makes suggestions as to the color contrast if you don't use the same palette as the pattern. Color 1 is the garter stitch border.

Quilt Star relies on 8 colors. No contrast is suggested, only the colors recommended in the original pattern. Color 8 is the 1x1 rib border.

At least one motif in Scout uses 3 colors.

Each motif in Quilt uses no more than 2 colors.

Cast on is 8 stitches for Scout.

Cast on is 4 stitches for Quilt.

All sections on Scout meet at 90 degree angles.

Some sections on Quilt meet at diagonals, at ~45deg ish.

Scout has 10 distinct blocks and patterns.

Quilt has 7 (?) distinct patterns. There seems to be an error in the charts. I'm not sure my count is correct based on the charts alone. But it is certainly fewer.

Increases on Scout are M1L, Decreases are k2tog

Increases on Quilt are kfb, decreases are k2tog.

Scout's finishing has no special bind off for the remaining 8 stitches.

Quilt uses a seamed bind off for the 6 remaining stitches.

Motifs for Scout appear to be floral.

Motifs for Quilt appear to be star-them

Source

VERDICT: they're different patterns.

This didn't stop people from stirring shit, because obviously you need to have an MFA to be inspired by patchwork, and only one person is allowed to be inspired by a thing.

People (Spurling suck ups) went on social media to b-word, including leaving comments on the Ravelry page for Chin's scarf. (Ravelry is like letterboxd for knitting and crochet, and also a platform that many designers use to sell their patterns)

Source, but you need a Ravelry account to view

This lead to Chin taking the pattern down for sale. Satisfied with the results, Spurling deleted her post . And so ends another chapter in the ongoing saga of insecure designers accusing others of plagiarism.

A few I remember from the last year:

A designer put out merch with "Knit Club" on a baseball caps. Well some other pattern designer has a community by that unique name and also has baseball caps merch (but none that actually say "Knit Club"

Source

"Only I'm allowed to be copy 1950s dresses!"

Source

"omg why are you so obsessed with me, stop copying me" macrame. Except her product looks like something posted earlier by someone else on TikTok. (If they look similar it's because there's only so much shit you can make with macrame and there's probably patterns for something like this in a book from the 70s)

Source

One French company accused another French company of copying their, um… tailor clappers, test squares and pointer cowtools (these are pretty common cowtools that have existed for a long time, this like Milwaukee accusing Makita of stealing their idea of the hammer)

Source

I forgot to add that while I agree with most of the commenters on the craft snark thread, look at this b-word trying to turn it into a race thing

source