As of lately, my loves, publishing and knitting, are beginning to merge on an entirely new level. I have set out to republish an out-of-print knitting book from 1952. And it's quite an endeavor. It's not so simple as scanning the old book, running OCR, and giving the text a facelift. Oh no! If it was that simple, I could have this project done in a matter of weeks. Instead, recreating this book will take a year or more, perhaps several... and that's if I hustle, and get lots of help with the knitting.
The book I'm working to republish is called "Number Knitting" The New All Way Stretch Method." Most knitters (even very experienced ones) have never heard of this book, because it only had one printing, and it the the only knitting book that the author ever wrote. So once it was printed, that was it! It is very hard to come by, and if you can find a used copy for sale online, it will likely fetch around $150. But I have seen one for sale for as high as $900. I have never seen more than one for sale on Amazon at any one time.
But as this blog is still a graphic design blog, I'll keep all the really publishing-specific content regarding the book here on my blog.
Because I aim to document the process of recreating this book, I'll be sharing milestones along the way. Here are a few milestones thus far:
- December 2015: Scanned in book (a library copy)
- January 2016: Received my own purchased copy of the book!
- January 2016: Began knitting the pieces in the book
- February 2016: Submitted request to US Copyright Office for a copyright renew/transfer search
- April 2016: Received word back from the Copyright Office that the copyright was never renewed or transferred. (So the original copyright protection expired in 1979.)
- April 2016: Started knitting "Lambs and Butterflies" form the original patent application
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| Lambs and Butterflies pattern from original patent application |
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