"You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - knitting version

[firecat]

Early in my knitting career I learned that if I liked a pattern on the web I should save a copy to my hard disk or else the pattern might go bye-bye and I might not be able to find it again. This happened with a pattern I really wanted to knit called the DNA scarf. (I later did find a copy - I don't remember if someone sent it to me, or if someone told me where it had moved to.)

Since then I have used my Mac's lovely "print to PDF" feature to save copies of a lot of knitting patterns.

And then along came Ravelry, which lets you save a link to a pattern in your account. I've been somewhat seduced by the ease of doing that (you can put a button on your browser toolbar to do it) although I still make PDFs of most patterns too.

Apparently today the magknits.com web site (a free online monthly webzine with knitting patterns) went bye-bye. A lot of people on Ravelry are upset that patterns they had put into their Ravelry queues are no longer available.

Which reminds me, I need to make sure I have PDFs of the patterns in my Ravelry queue.

Comments

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip about PDFs.

[basketcaselady.livejournal.com]

After having my computer crash last summer, I print patterns and put them in a plastic sheet protector in one of my knitting binders.

[firecat]

...and that's wise too. I'm relying on my two backups of the stuff, but you never know.

[snippy]

What a useful suggestion, I'm going to follow your lead.

Re: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - knitting version

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

since i've become a mac user, the "print to pdf" feature has rapidly grown to be one of my favourite features. i don't actually print the files since i don't want more paper floating around my house, but i'm now saving all sorts of things in one standard format.

and you're right about saving patterns when one finds them. i don't do it often enough; good reminder.

re. magknits -- have you tried the wayback machine for the patterns you liked? i just tried with a couple of links i had bookmarked, and they came up.

Re: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - knitting version

[firecat]

I also installed a program called Yojimbo that lets you print a PDF directly to Yojimbo which you can then organize using tags and folders. That made dealing with my taxes a lot easier.

Thanks for the tip!

Re: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - knitting version

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

btw, i've spidered the entire wayback archive for the site, and have all the patterns now, if you're missing anything.

Re: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" - knitting version

[firecat]

Thanks! I'm not missing any magknits patterns myself, due to my habit of making pdfs, but I'm sure some of the folks over on Ravelry would love to know that the wayback archive has what they are looking for.