KNITSTER

Well, a few weeks ago, I was wondering what all the fuss was about Ravelry. Now, I get it.

It’s an overwhelming site, to be honest. I can see why people want to join, and why it takes a while to get on, from a programming perspective! When I saw the previews they post about the fact that you can catalog your stash, your projects, your books, etc., I thought, “Big deal. If I wanted to do that, I could do that in MS Access or Excel or something like that.” But it’s much more. For example, I can list almost all the books I have, just by looking up the author or title, and it makes a virtual library whereby you actually SEE the book covers. That’s cool! And posting the projects and your stash also involves using your photo skills and your Flickr account (thanks to Helen, I have one), so there’s the easy tie-in that way. I think the bigger point is that it allows you to communicate on multiple levels with other knitters who have other commonalities. For example, I’ve joined forums/groups for parents of “onlies”, NJ knitters, knitters who watch “Heroes”, knitters who are involved in martial arts…you get the idea. In fact, I just started a group for the knitting parents of apraxic kids, so if you happened upon this via Ravelry, HI! 

I won’t bore you with too many details, but I think a great deal of why knitters are going crazy over it is that we get to bring more of our OTHER interests into play other than our knitting. Yes, it’s knitting that brings us together, but knitters are a very diverse group, and in some of the forums I’ve participated in, the topics are very limiting insofar as you have to stick to knitting topics only, and more of a help line-type of thing. Those spots are helpful too, but there are times I’ve had enough of “what do I do with this yarn?” or “How do I figure out the gauge/substitute the yarn?” (Come on, you read labels and do swatches! DUH!) I like talking to people who have other common interests with me. That’s why Black Belt Knitters (and Crocheters, too) was created by Becky and I (more Becky than me though), because we had friends within our virtual martial arts community that had the fiber arts in common. Ravelry takes this up a notch. By including multiple groups and forums, you can have one stop shopping for all those who share your other common interests or other commonalities. Everything about Ravelry promotes the idea of a blogosphere’s one stop shopping for the knitter. Looking for a forum? Got it. Looking for help on a pattern? Got it. Looking to catalog your stash/projects/needles/books, etc? Got it. Looking to message your knitting friends? Got it. And it has more than that as well. It’s really amazing. It’s almost overwhelming, which is why I haven’t posted that much of my own info over there. It’s time consuming, but to see what others have done in taking advantage of the different features…well, it’s just cool. It’s also kind of neat that I’m starting to be able, as different people sign up, to keep track of all my knitting friends in one place. Seriously! Not that I have that many, but hopefully can add on as time goes by (and they can add me too). So there you go. My mini-review of Ravelry.

In the meantime, still working little by little on my pair of socks, and just can’t figure out what to do next. I’m thinking I might work on some sort of baby gift for a guy who’s expecting his first child (with his wife of course), and I babysat him when he was a kid! I still keep in touch with him, and he’s kinda like an extra little brother to me, so I want to make and send him something. The baby boy is due in February, so I want to be sure to make something nice and warm– and washable! Haven’t been knitting much lately otherwise. I need to start making time to do that again.

Posted on November 1st, 2007 by Dani
Filed under: Community, General, Hangouts