Mason Dixon knitting book

LilHuskiesFootBallMom · 12-25-2008, 12:14 AM

Apparently there are more than a few errors in their patterns.. I picked up a copy today from my local library and on more than a few patterns, someone printed out corrections off the web and taped them to the pages.

knitasha · 12-25-2008, 05:44 PM

Unfortunately, there is a lot of that going around. Almost all of the new knitting books seems to have a bunch of errors.

Whenever I buy a knitting book I go to the publisher's web site, find any corrections, print them and paste them inside the front cover. Once I found a mistake that the publisher had missed; I emailed them and they added a correction to the site.

Or I just wait for the second edition of the book, when, hopefully, the corrections have been made.

RuthieinMaryland · 12-25-2008, 06:07 PM

Hi!

I've seen other threads about so many errors being in knitting books.

It's an important point, I feel, since it seems as though publishers are expecting the public to test out and "proof-read" their publications for them, and then they take the readers' corrections to print a more correct second edition. What in the world could they be thinking?

I'm right smack in the middle of writing a knitting book about how to design your own cotton knits and it just never would have occurred to me not to test and fine-tune the patterns, check and double check that the instructions are clear, the text is correct and generally put out a publication that the readers could safely use to get the product shown.

I've been pretty fortunate in that I've not come across a lot of books with many errors but the few I have found have been extremely unsettling, especially the ones that are teaching a method for something that I'm trying to learn.

This ranks right up there, among my pet peeves, with center pull balls that don't pull!!! So many times I've started a project with about a third of the ball lying on the sofa and then having to fish through it to find the end of the yarn!!!

Years ago that was NEVER a problem. A center pull ball really pulled easily and smoothly from the center. And for many years I NEVER found an error in a pattern.

Perhaps the most effective thing we can do as the buyers of books and patterns is write or e-mail the publisher with a complaint about the poor quality of the publications. It's our money, our time and our frustration that is being used up, and wasted, by such poor quality products.

OK, OK - end of rant!

But thanks for bringing it up!

Meanwhile, I wish everyone a happy holiday season!

Ruthie

Marria · 12-25-2008, 06:26 PM

What's the name of your book?

scmomof4 · 12-25-2008, 06:50 PM

This drives me absolutely bonkers! ESPECIALLY when I buy a book for a particular pattern and it doesn't work. I have actually taken a book back to the LYS and pointed out that the pattern didn't work and they STILL wouldn't accept it as a return- even though I had bought the book and yarn with the owner and she KNEW it was why I had bought the book.

GRRRRR

I have decided to just boycott the sites/publishers that don't proove out their patterns. They shouldn't expect the public to catch their errors and have us continue to buy their product.

I have much more useful things to do with my time!

LilHuskiesFootBallMom · 12-25-2008, 07:42 PM

http://www.amazon.com/Mason-Dixon-Kn...0230416&sr=8-2 there's the link to the book.

Unfortunately it's not just publishers of knitting books not proof reading. I don't know how many novels I've read (especially within the last few years) where there's obvious punctuation errors (a comma where there's supposed to be a period, and it's not like the writer didn't know since the word after the comma is capitalized when it's not a proper noun), names of characters in the wrong places (ie: the character is talking about another character and mentions their own name when u know they mean another character).

And they wonder why kids English and grammar are getting so bad.

Debbie · 12-25-2008, 08:19 PM

Perhaps the problem is with the "type-setter" or "typer-uper" or whoever it is that takes the manuscript and puts it into the correct format to be printed. I am sure they don't print a book from what they get from the writer ... and then, seems like it would be the publisher's responsibility to proof read before the final printing is done, but I don't think it would be cost effective for them to knit every pattern ... I doubt the author sees the book during all the steps of printing it, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that the pattern the designer sent in is correct !

DQ · 12-26-2008, 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by LilHuskiesFootBallMom

Apparently there are more than a few errors in their patterns.. I picked up a copy today from my local library and on more than a few patterns, someone printed out corrections off the web and taped them to the pages.

I got this for Christmas. I hadn't thought of checking for errors so thanks!

Marria · 12-26-2008, 07:53 PM

I think a good rule of thumb is that anytime you get a knitting book, and you want to make a pattern--check the website for errata. I have yet to see one that doesn't have any.

rachael72knitter · 12-26-2008, 08:34 PM

I had this problem with the magazine Knit N Style. I bought stuff to make a pattern in it and started it realizing the numbers were off.

They took forever to respond, and then didn't really answer my question, then never reported it with their errata.

I steer clear of that magazine, and when I asked for subcritions to magazines for Christmas, I did not request that one.

The fact that their was a mistake didn't bother me as much as the fact that they didn't seem to think it was a problem.