Here’s something fun I saw on Twitter today, while I had a quick break from soothing Jay who had an earache.

Jess, tweeted to say “Knit and crochet patterns work on the Kindle!” She linked to a picture of her new Kindle 2:

And look–the pattern she tried out first is the Cosmopolitan Cowl. I have been actively looking for reasons not to want to buy a Kindle. I feel like I already have too many little devices, phone, ipod, camera, etc. that I carry around when I travel. But the fact that it is a new pattern publishing medium isn’t helping. The pattern looks readable, and even the photo looks nice in greyscale. Not only that, the new Kindle2 will read to you and it will also play audio books. Not helping. The biggest thing stopping me now is the price.

The idea of a portable method of reading digital patterns is very appealing. As more and more patterns are offered in digital format it is becoming convenient to be able to access them from, say, your yarn store, or your knitting group. Of course, spilling a glass of wine on your Kindle is a bit more of a problem than spilling it on your paper pattern. I’m hoping that more devices like the iphone (which doesn’t handle pdfs very conveniently yet), Palm and Blackberry will allow for pdf viewing soon too–even if its not convenient to follow the pattern on a small screen, you could check gauge and yarn requirements.  Connecting knitters and crocheters with their digital patterns when they are in stores buying yarn can only help yarn stores and shoppers.