inspiration or stealing?

it’s always interesting to find new inspiration – I have gone to retail shops and looked at ready-to-wear, saw what's happening there and come away usually filled with what I thought were good ideas to work on. There were the catalogues, like Chico’s and Coldwater Creek that would never fail to inspire something.  Now, the internet is full of shops and ideas – I used to look regularly at J Jill and Net-a-Porter but my new go-to is Anthropologie.com – I love those clothes! Why? I guess they appeal to who I wish I was – much taller, much slimmer and younger! There you go, it’s all about fantasy, obviously, because I am never going to be any of those things, but it’s nice to look and wish.
The website is kind of fun because people who have bought, log in and give reviews and comments on the garment after they get it which tells you much more than the actual description. I find it really interesting to see what they have to say and I often am thinking, where did they get that idea? (if they were unhappy) What where they looking at when they saw the photo and how did it translate to what they are saying?
Now, some of the people are shopping in their local store and are giving an opinion which is great for those who would be shopping on-line and it’s kind of cool that they give their height, weight, bust size and usually age…but I digress…
Anyway, the other day I found one cardigan that I just seem to have become obsessed with – it’s called ‘Tralee Cardigan’ (I don’t know how to put a link to it from here, so you’ll have go look for yourself and type that into the search bar).  It is originally shown in a bright yellow and white with black trim – the description says ‘we love the subtle mixed pattern pockets on this super- soft cotton intarsia (this really kills me when they get the description wrong, it’s very obviously a double jacquard or fairisle) - and it’s f-ugly – but click on the next colour button and it comes up on a real person in black and white and OMG, I love it! Of course, I’m not going to pay $148 even if it did come in my size. I found myself revisiting the page a few times last week and then over the weekend I sort of forgot about it. On Monday I couldn’t find it – almost panicked and then somehow I managed to stumble across it – I don’t know how to add or save something to my favourites – so I figured I’d better do something to save the ideas – can you believe it? I first grabbed some graph paper and started to block in squares of the stitch pattern and then – whack/coulda had a V-8 - there I am with a DesignAKnit window open and the website photo in the background – OMG! this is too easy – got the stitch pattern done and then realized there would be too many long floats for the fairisle, because in my head, I’m already knitting this in WCD (wool crepe deluxe in fairisle,  and I don’t want any float longer that 3 stitches – here, proof – I’ve already redesigned and knocked off a temporary swatch…I can use a portion of  my ‘Herringbone’ stitch pattern from No 52 for the front – I’m so excited! I’ll keep you posted, I promise!
(next thing you know, I’ll be learning how to use Pinterest – please don’t tell me!)