Book Countdown: Month 4

With (almost) all the model shots done and the blog posts written and scheduled — and Amanda out of the house for a total of 13 days — this past month has been my time to really get down to writing. At the time of this writing, the manuscript is 55 pages long, which doesn’t include any of the pattern instruction text, 3 more chapters or the appendix — not to mention photos. After layout, I think we’re well on target to having a book of a similar length (in the realm of 200 pages) to the last one.

I’m trying to finish as much of the manuscript as possible this week and next so I can begin figuring out the technique photos. Once those are done, I’ll be able to send the patterns to my tech editor and simultaneously begin layout. The current plan is to work the book in landscape format — since so many of my charts are wider than they are tall — which will also open some really interesting layout options.

As you can see above, the title graphic is (more or less) complete. The original idea was to have the “nothing” appear as a shadow of the “double” but it was looking tacky or hard to read and I finally settled on this, which has the added op-art effect of making you question the angle at which you’re viewing it. Since the whole point of my work over the past decade has been to look at double-knitting from new perspectives, this is fitting.

If you’re just tuning in, I’ve been posting a pattern preview per week every Friday. I’ve just finished the first 4 (of 14) previews from my book and they’re getting lots of love over on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. What I’m really trying to do is to get people to sign up on my preorder mailing list. You can read more about that in my Month 5 blog post. In the book, the first 4 patterns are mostly using techniques that were in Extreme Double-Knitting, with a few tweaks to keep them interesting. The next 10, however, are all using new techniques so I hope you’ll stay tuned.

In other news, my workshops on July 30th at the Big Apple Knitters Guild (website is under construction) are filled — but if you’re interested you should be in touch. They’ll probably have a waiting list, but it’s also possible that they’ll decide to run a second day of workshops. Let them know if you’re interested.