Knitwit - January 2020 News

Countdown to the Blanket Book— about 10 months to go

The Blanket Book is a book of 30 knitted geometric blankets patterns that will be published in October or November of 2020. The publisher is Stackpole books. I don’t know what the book’s title will be, but I have proposed: The Cover Up: 30 geometric blankets to knit, but the publisher may come up with something better. I will periodically give an update in this newsletter on the expected date of release and eventually a link to the book on Amazon or other online sellers. Closer to the date of release I will post photos of the blanket and provide links to the photos here.

December was dedicated to our blanket photography. We took shots in the studio, around our house, at a friend’s house, and outside. Each blanket has an overhead shot, a lifestyle shot, and standard shots draped on a chair or couch, and some use a model. I just heard from the publisher that they are designing the cover. I shipped all blankets back to Sample Knitters this week. Did I mention what a talented and dedicated group of Sample Knitters I had on my team? They made working on this book such a pleasure. And the Technical Editor, Natalie Delbusso, did a fantastic job!

I will be making technique videos to support the book that will be linked to a page on the website for the book. In addition to the videos, I may add information about how to rearrange the blocks into alternate designs and tools for experimenting with alternate color schemes for the blankets. Let me know what additional content you think would be interesting or helpful.

Next Book is in the Works— More Geometric Blankets

I had been thinking about a sweater book for my next project, but have decided to write another book of geometric blankets instead. A lot of designs did not fit in the first book and there are new ideas I want to explore.

The first book had a rolling schedule for blanket design and knitting wherein we would start a blanket as soon as the pattern was written. For this book I am going to write a large set of patterns (or possibly all of them), and then start the Sample Knitting for all of them at the same time so that they are in the same phase. I think this will make it more fun for Sample Knitters and make it simpler for me to track progress. As with the first book, sample knitting will be four months long, I will provide the yarn and shipping, and as compensation the sample knitter will keep the blanket after photography and get a complimentary copy of the book.

Getting in Touch

To contact me you can leave comments on a blog post, use the contact us page or email me at moginch@gmail.com. Email me if you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter — I won’t be offended. I get a lot of email too. I will be sending out this newsletter once every 3 months.

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Free Headband Pattern

I visited my daughter Hannah in Plano, Texas and since she was complaining about the cold weather there, I knitted her a couple headbands during the visit and she modeled this one for me. This is a very easy headband and quite warm, since it is made in Paton’s Alpaca Blend, Chunky yarn. Get the pattern here. And if you try it out, let me know what you think.

How to Write a Knitting Book

I wrote a series of Blog posts on the experience and learnings from working on the Blanket Book. It starts out with this post on whether to self-publish or use a traditional publisher., The subsequent posts are on knitting specific topics such as: How to get Yarn Support, The Design Process, Pattern Writing and Tech Editing. Leave a comment and let me know what you think or if you have questions that I didn’t address.