Once upon a time, I designed this truly bizarre pattern. Inspired by a slightly tipsy conversation with my wife, I decided to create a scarf that was based on a deck of cards. Using my two-pattern and three-color techniques together, I devised a template that allowed me to knit cards that each had a front and a back. I combined 54 of them (including 2 jokers) to make this magnum opus of a pattern.
I sold the pattern on Ravelry, but I figured there might be a niche market for printed versions, so I had a small run of 100 of them printed with the help of my publisher but not under their control. I put 10 of them into kits and sold the rest individually. It took me about 3 years to sell that many, and I decided it wasn’t worth it to print more so I just sold them out and that was it — they were still available on Ravelry, after all.
A couple years later, I was in the process of getting the rights back from my publisher for Extreme Double-knitting, and was told that part of the process involved deleting the digital books on file with the printer so they couldn’t print any more. I was asked if I wanted a last run of copies of either book — and I figured, since this was literally my last chance, I should print another small run of 52 Pickup.
So here you have it. At the time of this post, there are 13 copies (after sales at Stitches West and an announcement yesterday to my mailing list) of 52 Pickup back in the world. Each one comes with a free PDF download of the pattern on Ravelry, as usual. There won’t be any more after this, unless there’s sufficient interest that it makes sense to print them in several-hundred copy runs at my new printer, which doesn’t seem likely. For more info, visit the 52 Pickup page. To buy one, visit my store. And thanks!