02 Feb 2011
by Tamsinin Knitography, Knitting Mama Tags: Free, Geek Knit, Kindle, Knitting, South Africa
Like the lesser spotted Woolly Mammoth, the Woolly Kindle is a rare and beautiful beast. It lurks in dark places and lures you in with its siren call of, “Boooooks, boooooooooooks, read my boooooks.”
The Woolly Kindle is also free. Yes. All you need is 1x Kindle and some basic ingredients to create this majestic creature.
Ok, I’ll stop talking rubbish and explain.
My Kindle is an older version (it was a gift from My Person) so there are very few ready-made covers for it. I also bought myself an utterly divine skein of handspun and hand-dyed merino wool (made from a pet sheep called Barney, ohhh yes) that demands it is used for something I touch regularly.
The result? I discovered two awesome patterns for Kindle covers that are both free and quite easy to make.
For the Monster Kindle Cover you’ll have to work in the round but it is quite an easy feat on circular needles. You may also have to register/log-in to Ravelry in order to see it as this was very kindly created and donated by a Ravelry member.
The Baobab is gorgeous, very easy to make, and has sentimental value because of the fact that it grows in Souf Efrica. Yes, I am aware that it is a little bit sad, but hey.
Fabulous free patterns, awesome Kindle covers. Life is good.
29 Jan 2011
by Tamsinin Knitography, Knitting Mama Tags: Crafty, Free, Kindle
Hot on the heels of my Daily Mailesque reveal of my tawdry relationship with my Kindle, here comes an utterly delicious free pattern for those of you who’ve also succumbed to Kindle love.
While this particular pattern is Kindlelicious, it will work just as well for any other eReader, just fiddle the measurements a bit here and there. Simple and gorgeous, this is a great pattern from The Sometimes Crafter.
28 Jan 2011
by Tamsinin Slightly Insane Tags: Books, Guilt, Kindle
Let me count the ways…
- Your light, light weight that fits into all my handbags. Oh, joy. No carrying of heavy tomes, just millimetres of technological beauty.
- The books! The books! 200 books are held within your light frame. 200! And you still weigh less than my right thigh. Awesome.
- Your memory is far better than mine. You remember what book I was reading, what page I was on, and you go there with just one click. How happy I was to dance around a bonfire of bookmarks. Those vile things that betrayed me the minute the book pages accidentally slipped open.
- No more horror on the faces of other humans as I carefully folded a page to mark where I was. Sorry, folks, I hate bookmarks and feel no remorse for folding a page.
- I don’t have to stop buying books. I can get books for free. I can have as many as I want because they won’t be cluttering up the lounge. YAY
- The husband is happy because he no longer has to hastily hide my crappy taste in books with his educated and impressive ones. Star Trek Encyclopedias hastily covered up with The Readers Guide to George Orwell. Or something.
- I can read as many books at once as I like. You remember where I was. Bliss
- I can write notes INSIDE you. This avoids the “Bugger, bugger, bugger where DID I put my notebook, shit, bugger,” that inevitably followed previous attempts at taking notes.
- Bye bye Dust Bunny because these dudes collect no dust. The Kindle does, though. Still, you can’t have everything.
- Instant Gratification. This is the big one. Sitting in the bush in South Africa? Have a sudden craving to get a book on Hippos? NO PROBLEM. Whispernet and 3G have it to me in seconds. At a coffee shop with a fellow mum? She mentions a book that you MUST read? Open Kindle, get book. No forgetting the title the moment you get home, then forgetting to ask her every time you next see her, and irritatingly only remembering both at midnight when it is too late to do anything.
The Shame
I love real books. I love them. The way they smell, the way they feel. I ADORE walking into an enormous bookshop with books piled higgledy piggledy across the shelves, where I can get lost in the rows, and every second book is something I need to own.
A morning spent in a bookshop is a morning to treasure. Carefully taking out each book I’ve bought and lovingly re-reading the blurb and carefully choosing which one I am going to start on first, is a pleasure.
So, to compensate for the fact that I have utterly betrayed the medium that has comforted, loved, inspired, excited and transported me, I beat myself with my Kindle cable 12 times before bed.
What you said