My New Toy!

In the summer I decided I wanted a Kindle for my birthday in August. My birthday was after we got back from our holiday to Spain in August. I decided that having a Kindle would be very useful to have with me on holiday so I ordered it before we went. At the time I did a lot of research into which Kindle to get and I decided I really wanted a Kindle Fire but it wasn't available in the UK yet and I couldn't find any indication of when it would be. 

So I chose the Kindle Touch 3G. I thought it would allow me to use the internet while away from a wifi network which meant I could check e-mails etc while out and about but that wasn't the case. The 3G only allowed you to download books when not in a wifi area. Still, I loved my Kindle Touch and used it a lot in Spain and have continued to use it since then.

Only weeks after we came home, Amazon was advertising the Kindle Fire in the UK. I was really annoyed. If I'd known it would be available so soon I would have waited. So I tried to convince myself that I was really happy with my Kindle Touch and that the Fire would only be a poor compromise between a standard Kindle and a tablet.

What I really wanted was a proper tablet, like an Asus. Problem is I can't afford an Asus this year and a Kindle Fire is only £129. In fact it's cheaper than what I paid for my Kindle Touch 3G. Last week I was in Waterstones in Plymouth with the girls and they stock kindles now. They had a bit Kindle display and I played around with the Kindle Fire a bit and asked some questions. And by the time we left the shop i was determined I wanted a Kindle Fire. Vanessa wants a Kindle for Christmas so I asked if she fancied mine at a lower price and she said yes, which I must admit surprised me. So I promptly ordered the Kindle Fire.

If you follow my Twitter feed you'll now I've been anxiously waiting for it all week and yesterday morning it arrived. isn't it pretty? I had to have a purple case, of course. One of the first things i downloaded was the Yarnthing podcast app. I've just discovered the Yarnthing podcast but love it. I must admit I didn't get much done yesterday. The majority of time was spent playing with my new Kindle Fire. I downloaded the books i'm reading and several new apps. Some I have on my phone already and some are new to me.

The only problem I had was trying to set up the diary/organiser app that comes with the Kindle Fire. It has to link to your e-mail account and I can't get it to do that. I've tried several times but no luck. Any Kindle Fire users who have any idea of what I'm doing wrong? I've searched the help section but having no luck. In the meantime I've downloaded an alternative diary/organiser pap but I really like the look of the one that came with the Fire.

The last week has been very busy. I've been recovering from my mouth op last week. I ended up having 3 teeth out instead of two. At least 2 of the 3 teeth had crowns. The surgeon struggled to get them out and there was a lot of drilling going on. He said to me afterwards that I have very strong bones, no danger of osteoporosis. Not sure what this meant but I assume it meant he was struggling to get the teeth out. The op took exactly an hour and despite the sedation i was awake for most of it. The biggest problem was that they pulled my head into a funny position and i ended up with a lot of neck pain which has taken a week to get over. and which caused a lot of trouble sleeping. From Thursday to Tuesday I slept through one night. I've slept through the last 3 nights though.

I'm working on a secret project right now and I've don a little bit of work on my Arctic Qiviut cowl and I've spent a lot of time swatching for new designs in both knitting and crochet. Above is a pile of some of those swatches, but not all of them. I've done quite a few swatches for shawls and those swatches can get quite big as they need to show the shape clearly and the different lace patterns that'll be used in the shawl design.

My new way of organising my design submissions (see the post below) is working and I've submitted to 4 different publications in the last week. I've already had 4 of those designs (from two mags) commissioned so i've got a very busy November and December coming up. Think there'll be very little public knitting happening in the near future. Although I really want to finish the Arctic Qiviut cowl.

you may be wondering what's happening to the Beads & Lace Collection. There's been very slow progress lately but I will be sending off the final pattern for tech editing this weekend and I'll be releasing another single pattern on Monday. I'm also determined to finish the layout for the e-book version next week. At the moment I'm determined to release the complete e-book collection by the end of November. Once I've finished the layout for the e-book it has to be proof read and tech edited again.

Do you fancy improving your lace knitting? I'm teaching Lace Improvers at Spin A Yarn in Devon on Tuesday and Easy Lace hosted by the Yarn Cafe in Coventry on 1 Dec. Want to join me? Contact the shops for details and to book.

I'm currently taking bookings for workshops for next year and my diary is filling up quickly so if you're a yarn shop owner, a guild/knitting group organiser or perhaps a WI committee member and would like to book me to teach a workshop, please contact me. I'll be adding some new workshops to my list for next year and I'll blog about those soon.

Have you got a Kindle Fire? What are your favourite apps, especially knitting related ones? Also, I'm really getting into podcasts, which ones do you listen to? Let me know in the comments.