Sliced Bread ain't got nothin' on this!

So, I was over at Beth's blog the other day. (Aren't I always?) She insists on taking all the rest of the ravelers down with us I guess. She made sure to point out their new Radar tab in the forums section. Under radar you can watch posts come up as they are posted - no matter the group.

Now when I saw this, I knew it was uber cool. I like being a fly on the wall, and I like not having to click to get to different things. Then I saw IT! After reveling in IT I went back to Beth's to tell her how much I love her for pointing it out and then kinda hijacked the comments.

IT = a post about putting patterns on your ipod! Hello! I have an ipod! Hello! I am always stalling cuz I can't find my pattern printout. Also, I have several things I want to knit, but am apparently too lazy to actually write in my little knitting book what I need to knit them. This is not good - it will turn out that I decide to by 1600 yards of Alpaca when I need about 2000 so I will be in constant debate to spend more on alpaca, or find another pattern. (Wouldn't an alpaca coat would be sweet in this Wisconsin weather? I don't have a coat. I should just buy more of the alpaca before it's gone - oh ya, Beth, you were right about the booth - I found their card the next day!)

Bet ya can't guess what I spent a good part of yesterday doing? Searching the internets for patterns I want to knit that don't involve charts. (You can only put text in the ipod. Well, you could put charts in the photos folder, I haven't tried it yet though, laziness and all) I also made a file for pattern info (yarn requirements, etc.) for things I want to make. No more trying to remember if that Thneedling calls for worsted or DK and one ball or two!

I searched for easy to read instructions to link ya'll to, but failed to find any.

Long story short - You can save .txt (text) file in the notes folder of your ipod if it is enabled as a storage device. (Don't know how to do that? Google or read you ipod manual) Here ya go!

1. Open up the pattern you want and then open up Notebook (for windows users).

2. Copy and paste your pattern, or type it in if you only have a hard copy - which kind of defeats the laziness factor here. (If you copy text from a pattern and it has pictures in it, they won't paste into Notebook - so no need to try not to select them.)

3.Now save it as a text file on your computer. I believe the rule of thumb is that it can only be about 150 lines per file. You may have to break this up if it is a large pattern.

4. Open up the file folder for you ipod just like it was another disk and open up the Notes folder. (did I mention to connect your ipod to your computer? No? I make a horrible pattern writer!)

5. Drag your .txt files to the Notes folder

6. Eject your ipod and you are good to go. To view you pattern go to the Extras category, then notes. It may take a minute or so for them to load, but they should be there.

See, it's better than sliced bread!