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.
Mason Dixon knitting book
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.
Hi! :waving:
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!!! :gah: 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 
What’s the name of your book?
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!
http://www.amazon.com/Mason-Dixon-Knitting-Knitters-Patterns-Questions/dp/0307236056/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230230416&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.
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 !
I got this for Christmas. I hadn’t thought of checking for errors so thanks!
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.
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.
So does anyone have a link for corrections? Is there one for the new book too?
I would just like to say thank you everyone for pointing this issue out to me. I honestly had no idea that I should be checking with the publishers for any errors. I have recently purchased and recieved books with patterns. I have found the errata on the sites and downloaded them. It’s too bad we can not count on the accuracy of our books. But at least we have the Internet to get the corrections quickly.
You do want to make sure that you check the printing and edition of the book. Sometimes corrections have already been made when the book goes to a second printing.
Also, sometimes the pattern designers don’t realize there is a problem. For instance, I contacted a designer once about the amount of yarn required to make a bag. She wrote back saying that the amounts were correct. This was a class knitting project and using the same yarn and knitting to gauge all 5 of the class members and the instructor used half the amount of yarn the pattern required. Fortunately it wasn’t a luxury, overwhelmingly expensive yarn, but still half the amount? The LYS owner was very understanding and we could return the extra yarn.