PJ Trader

And I kind of put off telling you about it.  Sorry.

This was today’s Cathy cartoon – it’s perfect!

Today Is National PC Cleanup Day, So Let’s Tidy Up Your System – Maintenance – Lifehacker

The boys and girls over at Lifehacker reminds us yesterday was akin to a National Holiday, just so you can take the time to clean up your computer.  Click on the link above to get some ideas where to start decluttering your computer – but I wouldn’t recommend using the dishwasher!  Just saying!

If you’re looking for free knitting and crocheting patterns, one of the best places to look is at Lion Brand’s pattern catalog.  Some may poo-poo the idea, but I’ve noticed they’ve taken a lot of the patterns published in the booklets and put them online.  Did I mention they’re FREE?

They’ve also done a lot to improve their website, providing user-friendly features to save patterns you like to a personal account and such.  A few weeks ago they rolled out a mobile-phone friendly site (http://www.lionbrand.com/mobile) as well as offering (wait for it, wait for it)…an iPhone app for their site.

Today they announced a couple more knitter/crocheter friendly features designed to keep you mobile with your needlework and assist you in case you loose that paper pattern.

This is a cardigan pattern I like and had bookmarked as a favorite at Lion Brand.  It’s called the Fifth Avenue Cardigan and I’ve seen it in their booklets.  Online, though it’s free.  (I show it in the gray, because the pattern detailing is easier to see.  Lion Brand, for some inexplicable reason, renamed the pattern when they show it in the alternate two colors from the original black.)

In the pattern instructions page, you can add notes.  These notes are saved online, and only you can see them.  Makes great sense to me for yarn substitution notes, or yardage calculations, or who you might make such a sweater for, as well as any pattern changes you make or errors you find. 

 
And the other really cool feature is the row counter they added RIGHT ONLINE!

I like that idea.  With the manual + and – buttons (for those few occasions when we frog back), it’s not hard to keep up with where you are.  Positioning the counter in the pattern gives a nice visual clue where you are in the project as well.

The mobile iPhone app doesn’t seem to have these two features (yet?) but I was able to use mobile Safari to go the mobile website and use both tools, which is just as easy as using the Lion Brand app. 

OK, I admit these are things that combine my favorite worlds:  knitting and technology.  Isn’t life grand when two worlds collide?