Well, faithful follower, it’s long past the time I hoped I’d have my book ready to print but progress is still happening. Here’s the rundown.
First and foremost, the final request I made of Cooperative Press when I signed my rights reversion contract has been granted. If you own a Ravelry copy of Extreme Double-knitting (either because you purchased it digitally or because you got a Print+PDF deal from Cooperative Press), you should have received a Ravelry message today. Please check your email (or log in to Ravelry if you don’t have Ravelry messages set up to forward to your email).
I want to extend a thank-you discount to people who purchased the original edition of my book. I have been racking my brain to figure out a fair, foolproof method of determining who is eligible for such a discount. Unfortunately, since I don’t have access to the sales records, my hands are tied. Cooperative Press was unable to send a message to all of the customers who bought my book, but was able to reach out via a Ravelry update. I know this will not catch everyone — but it’s the best I can do. People have made suggestions about how else I might compile a list of eligible customers, but there are too many loopholes that might be exploited.
That said, if you haven’t received the Ravelry update and you can prove (with a receipt) you purchased Extreme Double-knitting from Cooperative Press, a LYS, Amazon or some other vendor, get in touch and I’ll do what I can.
Just so it’s clear, I’m merely compiling a list of people who would be eligible for a discount due to a previous purchase. I’m not actually sending the discount out yet, because I’m not yet ready to begin preorders. For a progress report, see below …
Close to 10 years ago, I did a photo shoot with two friends who had agreed to model for my first book. I thought it would be fun, as I completed the redesigns and reknits of my patterns for the revision of that book, to also revisit my models from 10 years ago. I had a couple of hurdles: I wanted to photograph winter wear and it was already Spring, and my models now live in Atlanta where it’s much more obviously Spring than up North where I live.
So I had them scope out locations where we might be able to reduce the obvious seasonal inaccuracy, and we did our best. We had a lot of fun and took some great photos. I just have a couple pieces left that need photographing and require conditions that my friends could not provide (due to the lack of readily-accessible babies and yarn stores in their immediate vicinity).
The book layout is approaching done-ness, and there’s a bit of a surprise. I’ve been calling this my “revised and expanded edition” — but that appears to be only half true. Revised it is, but expanded? Not so much. In fact, it’s about 30 pages shorter than the previous version. How is this possible? I have a few theories. First, I went from a portrait-mode 2-column layout to an oblong 3-column layout (as a comparison, Double or Nothing is an oblong 2-column layout with 4-column instructional sections. Second, I removed a significant chunk from several chapters, relegating the twisted (“introverted”) stitches to the appendix rather than the front-row seats they were occupying. Third, I was able to make some patterns more efficient in the redesign process. Sierpinski, for example, took 9 pages of charts to express in the previous version. The new version now takes up 2 pages, and only one of those is actually a chart; the other is a schematic. Since the pattern is based on a fractal, it only makes sense that I can use fractal geometry to save space.
I have some more hand photos to shoot (and should be able to do so in the next few weeks as I will be keeping my hands well manicured for my last two major appearances at Yarnover and Maryland Sheep & Wool. There will also be stock photos and a handful of miscellaneous items — but I was able to reuse quite a lot of material from the original version too.
Once the book is mostly done, it’ll head off to tech editing and finally (after changes are made in response to tech editing) to printing. I think that I should have it complete and ready for shipping by mid-summer or early Fall, and definitely ready for sale at my Fall appearances.
Thanks again for your interest and stay tuned!