My Introducing Chain Mail eBook has been relatively successful, so I’m branching out, to begin a series of eBooks for knitters.

My mother was an avid needleworker — not just knitting, but crochet, needlepoint, embroidery, tatting … if it used yarn/thread and she could do it sitting on the couch watching TV, she did it.

Mom also had a huge collection of needlework magazines, from the 1950s on. I remember eagerly looking at them when I was a kid, drawn to the knitting, especially the 1960s bright-colored ski sweaters. I still have one on my “to knit” list.

So, my new project is to go through the magazine collection and transcribe color patterns to collect into one or more eBooks. Since few of the patterns were charted, I’ll be taking them directly from the photos. This lets me capture the patterns from the ads as well.

To the best of my knowledge, these patterns have either dropped out of copyright or fell into general use. None of the designers are credited. And most of the magazines are long out of publication. If anything is obviously copyrighted, or if I can figure out the designer (one pattern is clearly by Elizabeth Zimmermann), I won’t use it. If you recognize anything in the book, let me know.