Monday, July 23

Lace Knitting and notes of interest

I was amazed recently to discover that the Yarn Harlot has linked to my blog. Stephanie doesn't mention my blog by name but does link to it in a recent post about the MS3 stole on July 5th. Woo-hoo!

It's fun to browse Sitemeter to find out the location of people who read my blog, what pages they're reading on my site (the triangle shawl list is by far the most popular page), and what links they use to get to my blog. Checking this information out is how I found out about the Yarn Harlot's post. Last Thursday, I had readers from 13 countries outside the U.S.---the Netherlands, Croatia, Estonia, Norway, Australia, Argentina, Malayasia, Denmark, Germany, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the UK.!!!

I'm making progress on the shawl I'm designing. I showed it to my friends on Saturday. They love it! I don't think I'll have to twist many arms to get one or more of them to test knit it for me. I have to finish the prototype first and decide what to do for the edging. I've had several thoughts about that. We'll see which works best or if I may offer a choice.

I've updated the link for the Icelandic Lace Shawl on the triangle shawl list. The new link will take you to the free pattern at the Knitting Daily site. The original pattern in Piecework magazine calls for 900 yards of yarn. The revised pattern calls for 1,260 yards of yarn. Be careful, they've already discovered an error in the key to the new chart.

Have you heard of Knitting Lace by Susanna Lewis? It's an incredible book, but sadly, is out-of-print. Two publishers have been trying to get the right to reprint it from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. One of the publishers who's been trying to get reprint permission is Meg Swansen at Schoolhouse Press. Sadly, after two years of trying, they're getting nowhere. The author, Susanna Lewis, has even asked the museum to allow the reprint without any luck. This makes no sense to me. It's a win, win situation for everyone. If they grant a reprint, it will put some much needed money into the museum's bank account, sell a lot of books for the lucky publisher, and get the book into lace knitters waiting hands. They must not have a clue that copies of this book are selling for over $100 on Ebay.

Here's what I suggest. Send an email (or write or call) the museum asking them to grant permission to reprint this book to one of the publishers. If enough of us do this, it might break the log jam and get things moving.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/about/contact.php

For general comments, or to contact us regarding an exhibition, please send an e-mail to information@...

To phone the Brooklyn Museum: (718) 638-5000 or Fax: (718) 501-6136

7 comments:

annmarie said...

I absolutely will send an email to the museum! Thanks so much for this information. I'm going to link to your post from my blogs to help spread the word! Onward. :)

Rhonda the Stitchingnut said...

Oh yes, I followed annmarie here and will also write an email. I would defiantly like to buy that book if they republish it.

Alpaca Granny said...

Will you be going to the Michigan Fiber Fest in Allegan?

Lacefreak said...

I have a copy of this book and it is really informative. I hope they do re-print it since there is so much interest in lace right now.

Alwen said...

That's so weird, I just posted about this book at the Knitty forum.

I'm writing another blog post about it and linking here. I so-o want my own copy of Knitting Lace!

Anonymous said...

I sent an email to the museum, I hope it helps. I borrowed a copy of this from my library and would love to buy a copy of my own.

Phyl said...

Has there been any developments towards getting the reprints? I see it's been a year since your original blog post and wondered if there is still a need to send requests to the museum or if they publisher/author have had any luck?