As the years go by, I do more and more of my Christmas shopping on Amazon. It works out well—as I lose tolerance for mall madness, Amazon increases the variety of stuff they sell. I can browse at my leisure, read reviews, usually get a good discount, and usually have it shipped free right to my front door.

Did you know that you can now buy yarn on Amazon? Most of it is Red Heart and the like, but sure enough, they’ve got a section for yarn in the Knitting subcategory of Sewing, Craft, and Hobby. Dig around and you just might find, oh, some alpaca and Cascade here or some Artyarns silk here…

But I actually came to blog about this:

That’s right, by adding a little button to your bookmarks bar, you can add anything from any store on the web to your Amazon wish list.

Here’s a peek at mine right now:

No yarn in that shot, but the possibilities are endless! And if your loved ones are anything like mine, they will appreciate being able to go to one place to find out that you want Project Runway Season 4, The Figs Table, this amazing amigurumi pattern on Etsy, and a button pack from Ravelry, without having to ask a bunch of prying, surprise-ruining questions.

Four strips down, four to go.

I love the way it’s turning out, but it’s approximately as interesting as knitting garter stitch.

‘Tis the season for traveling with your knitting. Like most people I know, I always travel with a laptop. The problem is, I mostly use my desktop when I’m at home and a different desktop when I’m at work. And so my downloaded knitting patterns get scattered across three computers and inevitably the one I want is not where I can get at it.

In addition to the access problem, there is also the backup problem. How much would it suck to lose all the patterns you’ve acquired over the years?

I would love for Ravelry to build in the ability to upload patterns you’ve purchased or downloaded elsewhere to Ravelry for storage. It’s on the list, but I’ve found a workaround in the meantime: Google Docs!

I already use Google Docs for a lot of things; I don’t know why it took me this long to see it as a way to store and organize my digital patterns. I created a folder called “Craft Patterns” in my main directory, and then a bunch of subfolders for different crafts and pattern types.

Then I started uploading my pattern pdfs. In a few cases where there was no pdf to begin with, I went to the original pattern web site and copied the pattern text and charts into a new document. I figured it would be good insurance in case the original site ever disappeared.

You will not be able to upload pdfs that have security restrictions (e.g., Rogue or the Brother Amos socks). This is a known issue and Google is working on it.

Now I hope this goes without saying for my readers, but this should only be used as a way to store and organize digital patterns for your personal use. Sharing patterns you’ve uploaded is a no-no.

It’s not an ideal solution (no thumbnails, for one) and I still eagerly await the knitter-friendly, pattern-specific version that will hopefully someday appear on Ravelry. Please go vote for it if you do too!