Thursday, September 06, 2007

I added two KF kits to my Ravelry stash this morning – his “Mosaic Waistcoat” which I think is based on a floor in Ravenna, and the Green Granite Blocks jacket from “California Patches”.

This enterprise is getting pretty scary, and I’m a long way from finished. It’s not that there are any surprises – this is all yarn I know and love. It’s just that there is so much of it, and I have so comparatively few years of knitting left, looking at it realistically.

However, the big news on the knitting front is this:

It’s on offer on eBay.com: 190149060730. I was stunned when I found it yesterday – it’s the original issue, to be seen on page 106 of the current VK, the anniversary issue.

I thought about it a lot yesterday. It is clearly the American edition, published in NY at 35 cents. There was no second American one until late in the war, when, I think, they started over, numbering from scratch.

Whereas the British magazine went straight on from here, twice a year, right through the war.

I don’t even know for absolutely, positively sure that there actually was a separate and different British first edition, although I believe there must have been. I got Number Two out yesterday and had another good look at it. It’s very English.

And I decided to hold out for the English Number One. I won’t let this gem go for a farthing, of course, but I won’t pursue it into the stratosphere either. Where I suspect it will end up.

If I had decided otherwise, I wouldn’t mention it here until after the event – Ah’m nae sae green as ah’m cabbage-lookin, as we used to remark to each other when we met in the street in Glasgow in the 50’s. It would be great, in fact, if one of you would buy it and tell me all about it.

Comments

laurieg, I’ll look for King’s “Night Shift”.

Beverley, alas, no, I didn’t know your friend, although I agree that coincidences like that do happen. Someone wrote to me after I posted the group picture from the 2006 Strathardle Gathering, to say that she recognized my daughter Helen: she used to room with her in Brooklyn.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:35 AM

    I think this may be The (only) One. Note that the price says: "35 cents "in the US", implying that the same book was sold elsewhere with a different price slapped on.
    Did Conde Nast have a British location at the time or was number 2 published in New York but distributed in London?
    One guess is that the first edition sold well in Britain, badly in the US, so they pursued only the former location. From what I've seen, the patterns back then were similar although it's at least possible that they threw in a few different ones for England. Good luck anyway.
    Sister Helen

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  2. Anonymous2:43 PM

    Long time lurker chiming in on Steven King & "Night Shift." The movie "Stand By Me" was based on one of the short stories in Night Shift, The Body, I think it was. I have read most of his older books and like The Stand, too.

    Jean, I've been a fan since the KnitList days... congratulations on Sam's prize!

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