I live in a household that includes an early adopter and an apprentice early adopter.

While not a latter day neo-Luddite myself, when compared to these two, I am what could be termed a reluctant adopter, and one of the things that held me back from embracing the Kindle was Amazon’s Henry Ford-like approach to the cover; namely, that you could get it in any color you wanted as long as you wanted black.

But last November when the early adopter’s Kindle 3 arrived, the apprentice early adopter got the Kindle 2 that had previously belonged to the early adopter, and the first Kindle ever shipped to our house was then passed down to me.

As the Kindle that is now mine was most recently the property of my 13-year-old son, it has a number of his favorite things to read on it. An issue of Technology Review, Gulliver’s Travels, a number of Sherlock Holmes stories, Simon Rich’s ever popular (at least with 13-year-old boys) Free-Range Chickens, Moby Dick, and seemingly anything every written by Jules Verne (your choice of French or English).

Up until this past week, my Kindle had languished in my closet, but I finally charged the battery, turned it on, learned how to use it, and even bought a Kindle Edition crochet pattern: “Crocheted Carriage Cover” by Northern Lights Vintage.

The pattern was easy to read, but the directions were not complete and read as follows:

Large Motif: Work first 10 rows following directions given for Cap #620.

In as much as the directions for Cap #620 are not included, nor does it appear that they are even available for purchase from Northern Lights Vintage, the crochet pattern itself was useless, but the lesson about purchasing crochet pattern sight unseen was invaluable.

Unable to embark on the the adventure of making a crocheted carriage cover, I then turned my attention to decorating my Kindle so that it could be easily distinguished from all of the other electronic devices in my home that are swaddled in black leather.

This is how my Kindle looked before I began the process of making it mine:

Certain that I wanted to decorate it so that it was a better reflection of who I am, but uncertain how to proceed, I rummaged through my box of crochet hooks and got out this special hook from the folks at Tulip:

as well as a package of brightly colored craft thread I had purchased many moons ago.

Using the amazingly cool crochet hook and the somewhat slippery craft thread, I made granny squares.

Once I had enough of the Lilliputian squares to form a strip, I did just that, and then glued it along the front right edge of my Kindle:

Now no one will mistake my Kindle for theirs.