Ravelry

I asked a fellow knitter on Readerville last night if she was in Ravelry. And she said she had seen it mentioned here but didn't know what it was. Which made me realize that if she, a knitter, didn't know about Ravelry, the non-knitters among you probably didn't have a clue. So here's what I sent her in an email about Ravelry:

Ravelry is sort of like Readerville For Knitters. I was a little hesitant about joining...did I really need this? But I signed up because, hey, there were 12000 people in line in front of me and they were only letting in 100 people a week (they are still in beta version...eventually they'll be open to the public) so I had a long time to think about it. Then suddenly they were letting in 500 people a day and bang, there I was with my own invite.

So I joined.

And it's so cool. You get your own "notebook" in which you can list (and put in pictures of) your projects, both finished and on-going, with all the details about what needles you're using and what yarn. You can keep track of your stash and your knitting library. You can chat with friends, and comment on other people's projects and yarns. You can swap and sell and buy yarn. You can enter the name of some yarn you might have bought on a whim and find out what other people are doing with it. You can get little reviews of yarns and patterns. There are forums where you can join discussions or ask questions. There are groups...people who knitting a certain pattern or who love the same kind of yarn or who live in the same area...

I have only started to scratch the surface. But it's wild.

Writing this to her made me think about what I liked about Ravelry. If she had asked me a month or so ago, when I was new there, I think my response would have been less enthusiastic because you really have to be there a while to realize all the resources that Ravelry makes available to you. I wonder if the couple who started it had any idea it would become so big.

Oh...and I'm home today...waiting for the plumber. What fun.