DKY Knitters Forum.

Can anybody help me please? I am looking for knitting patterns of Postman Pat and Noddy - I had them long ago, and used them a lot, but they were paper patterns from I think Womans Weekly, by Alan Dart, and obviously got lost when I moved. However, I have two great-grandchildren who have taken a liking to these two toys, and I thought I would try knitting them again - my poor old hands don't let me do much knitting now, but if I can give pleasure to the little ones, then i will persevere. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks x

Welcome to the forum nanniebutch.

This is a topic that comes up time and time again in emails to the office. I don't know of any patterns but can give the following advise that Alan Dart gives on his website.

"Please note that patterns of licensed characters won't be available for downloading. For legal reasons, these could either only appear once as a magazine feature or as a pattern leaflet, all of which are now out of print. If the character design you are looking for has appeared in a magazine, you may still be able to obtain a back issue if you contact the magazine directly."

Basically, for any character that 'belongs' to someone (such as the BBC) it is almost impossible to get copyright to produce a pattern leaflet for that character. I think Magazines can get around this as they are giving the pattern away free with the magazine rather than selling the pattern.

Your best bet is that someone knows which magazine it was in and you can then contact that magazine. Beware of people who say they will email you a copy etc. as that may still infringe the copyright.

Sorry I can't be more positive

You could always try to persuade your great-grandchildren that they would rather have one of the other toys that are on Alans website - there are quite a lot to chose from.