Value of a Book

Having watched a number of my friends publish books, it was amazing to note how much work went into the project of getting a book into print.  Content, designs, photos, proofreading, etc, etc., etc.

P.C. - Pre-Computers

Can you imagine what it took to get a book published prior to the days of computers and digital images and e-mail?  That's what went through my mind when I found this little historical gem at my local flea market.

In addition to all the historical information Mrs. Lowes must have gathered, she would have also needed to gather a number of photographs or objects that could be photographed.

The display above shows that each illustration/photograph is covered with a tissue.  This one even has words printed on the tissue, but most others don't.  But you'll also note (if you look closely) that this book was printed in 1908...over a hundred years ago.  The printing, binding and finishing process must have been a lot of work as well.  You'll note below that some of the pages hadn't been completely cut during the finishing process, and not ONE of the readers of this book in the last 100 years found it important enough to cut this page open.

Given the importance of this book, I can fully understand why the author and publisher and all the contributors would have gone to such great lengths to get it to the readers.  I'll leave you with the first page of Mrs. Lowes' conclusions on Old Lace and Needlework.

Current Knitting

I did another few inches of work on Cascade Scarf #4 over the weekend.

I only have about 12 more inches to work on this scarf/wrap, so I anticipate I should finish it by the end of the week.  In fact, I might have finished it already, had I not started on a new test-hat project for my niece.

 This is the headband section of a hat by Stephen West called Westward.  Both the Latvian braids at the top and bottom and the chevrons both pint Westward.  I'll hope to finish the top of the hat sometime this week as well.

Lesser-Known Literary Channels

It seems a lot of knitters are extremely well-read and I also have a good friend that works in the rare books section of Princeton University's library (Firestone Library), so I'm fortunate to be exposed to a number of literary vehicles I might not otherwise have chanced upon.

Sharing

The first one of those items is an amazing quarterly literary (kind of) magazine called Lapham's Quarterly.

Each quarter, this publication (for lack of a better term) focuses on a particular subject, Death, The Sea, Medicine, and obviously comedy.  My friend at the library gave me a subscription for this year, and I've just started into the first issue, and it's wonderful.

The second wonderful thing about being around literary folk, is getting interesting and good book recommendations.  My latest book recommendation I've received was for Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

I read it while on vacation, and just loved the story and the characters.  The writing I found to be a bit sophmoric, but not in a way that interfered with my enjoyment of the book.

Maybe some of you already knew about these two items, but if you didn't I thought you should.

Current Knitting/Crocheting

I've only added one vertical row of connecting crochet to Nico's Granny Square blanket.

If you can't tell from the photo, it's the bottom row (I guess that's a horizontal row in the photo, but I consider it a vertical row on the blanket).