Kindle Your Interest in Crafts
By Twistie
I’ve been thinking for a while about getting a Kindle. Don’t worry, I have no intention of giving up physical books! I love books. I love how they feel, and I love how they smell, and I love all the emotional ties they create over the years with use and lots of petting. But sometimes an electronic reader would be really handy. You know, for trips and such. It gets heavy packing real books on the road. It would be nice to have more space for clothes and maybe even some crafting supplies in my luggage.
But what would I do with those crafting supplies if I didn’t have my crafting books along? Well, I decided to take a look and see if the Kindle would help me with that.
Seems I didn’t need to worry. Using the search term ‘crafts’ in the Kindle library, I have found more than eight thousand titles. Sure, some of them are short story collections and books about magic, etc., but the majority of them seem to have either instructions or historical information about various and sundry handcrafts. Origami, ribbon work, quilting, woodwork, blacksmithing, crochet, running a crafts business… and the list goes on.
Using the term ‘lace’ is less useful. Many of the ebooks that brings up are more erotica than instructions for making dainty trims. Still, there are a few books of interest to someone wishing to make lace rather than have sexy reading fun. And it’s more than possible that some of you would find both rewarding. I wouldn’t judge.
‘Knit’ produces less titles, but more of them on point.
The really nice thing is how inexpensive most Kindle books are. Most of them are under ten dollars, and there are some that are free (out of copyright and often converted to the eformat by volunteers, with varying levels of success, according to reader reviews) or under five dollars.
In the end, I’m not giving up my collection of craft books any more than I plan to dump all my novels and cookbooks anytime soon. Still, as soon as funds allow, I do think I’ll pick up a Kindle and a few ebooks to go on it. It’s one more way I can use modern technology to help me pursue archaic interests… and that’s my favorite way to live my life.
July 28th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
“use modern technology to help me pursue archaic interests… and that’s my favorite way to live my life.”
It tickled me no end that after designing and printing a large mailer on the home computer and printer, I did the final folding using a stone age tool that my husband found in the sands of the Sahara desert.
July 28th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
@annie: Now that’s a great way to live your life! Take what you can use from every age, and use it where it fits.
July 30th, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Nook. Nook. Nook. Nook. NOOK!
I finally decided that, as much as I love the tactile pleasure of a hard copy book, the issue of space dictated that I get an e-book reader. I was going to go with the Kindle, but after some serious poking around I decided to with the Nook. It’s much easier, more “instinctive” to use, and you can use it with your library’s ebook format (unlike current versions of the Kindle). Take another look before you buy!
July 31st, 2011 at 5:58 am
I love that you can send yourself documents. I’ve saved online patterns as .pdf files and loaded them onto my Kindle: socks, lace charts, cables, you name it. The only thing that doesn’t work well is coloured fair isle charts because of the black-and-white only limitations of current Kindles. My own portable custom knitting library — whoohoo! That means more room for yarn.