Thursday, September 22, 2005

Trying to save Grandma's crochet pattern stash

I've started to go thru the stash of crochet patterns that my Grandma O'Neil gave me several years before she died. (ok...more than several years...she gave them to me before she was too deep into the Alzheimer's)

Most of the magazines are WorkBasket Magazines. Some of them go back to the 1950s. Some of the retro patterns are probably back in style now. There are also a few Crochet Fantasy magazines (earliest one is from 1984) and my aunt brought me over a few copies of Magic Crochet and Crochet World, along with a few WorkBaskets that she found around the house.

Some of the older magazines are starting to crumble, and a few of the magazines were obviously well used. (I recognized a few patterns as things that Grandma had made for me, my sister, and my cousins)

Since some of the magazines are crumbling into dust, I'm bypassing my usual reluctance to commit copyright violations, and I'm typing some of the patterns into Word and saving them to CD so that I'll have them if the magazines totally crumble. Most of them are printed on cheap acidic paper...it's pretty much a given that they'll disappear in a few years. I'm sure I'll pick one of them up someday, only to have them fall apart like 3,000 year old paper scrolls.

I'm going to buy plastic comic book bags and will be putting each magazine in a separate bag. It wont stop them from crumbling, but it might slow it down a bit.

Some of the patterns that I've already typed up, I've printed off (actually planning on using those patterns fairly soon) and I've put them into some binders. (finally, all those classes in Desktop Publishing are paying off) I've reformatted some things, like bolding some print, and using italics

In the Header and Footer spaces, I've put what magazines I've copied the pattern from...year, issue numbers...

I know it's technically a copyright violation by making copies, but they're only for my own use and I'm not posting them to the internet. I think Grandma would like it that I'm getting some use out of her patterns...it's great to have a nice big stash of patterns to drool over....errr...ummm...browse through.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

A better choice would be to get a scanner and scan whatever you think you might want to use. Make certain you can READ it really well. Alternatively, photocopy patterns you want. Typing introduces errors. Believe me, once they've started crumbling, it happens quickly.

ErinLindsey said...

I have a scanner...it just recently quit working tho. I need to beg Santa...errr...my dad, for a new one this christmas. Not exactly sure what was wrong with the old scanner. I'm hoping Santa brings me one that is powered from the USB cable.

As for introducing errors into my typed up versions of the patterns. My Desktop Publishing teacher impressed me with the importance of proofreading. I've proofread the patterns after typing them up...and I've gone back after a couple of days and proofread them again to make sure there are no errors.

Stephanie said...

Proofreading-having been an editor in a past life, you can never proof enough. ;) Have someone else proof it as well before tossing the original.

ErinLindsey said...

I never said I'm going to toss the originals. I'm typing up the patterns to be backups if the originals turn completely to dust. Not all of the magazines are crumbling yet...I'm starting with the ones that are in the worst shape. As soon as I get a new scanner, I'll probably scan the originals too...but until then, I'll just have to content myself with typing them up...