Ravelry is the New Feng Shui

The book Sweater Quest has been the subject of many recent blogs because it really opened the question "Did the Internet Save Knitting?" I think the answer is most definitely YES!

The scarf knitting craze of 7-8 years ago got people interested in knitting and
websites like Knitty and Ravelry created a vehicle to connect knitters with yarn and pattern resources, inspiration, instruction, and other knitters and fuel the passion for knitting. The timing was perfect.

Knitty was the first knitting website that I really got addicted to. Knitty is the longest-running free knitting magazine on the web. Launched in 2002, there are more than 7 years worth of fabulous knitting patterns and articles. What I really like is that Knitty gives new designers a place to showcase their talent, so the patterns are usually fresh, quirky, innovative and FREE. The newest edition of Knitty patterns was just released this week, so take a quick peek.

I think Ravelry is the BEST website on the planet!
Husband and wife Casey and Jessica Forbes founded Ravelry in May 2007. Their idea was to create a web presence for all fiber artists to keep track of their yarn, tools and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration. If you are not a member of Ravelry, you must become one! It's like Facebook for knitters only much, much, much better!

I've always loved Ravelry for the ability to quickly look up yarns and patterns (which we have to do quite a bit at the shop). This past month, I've spent way too much time on Ravelry learning how to use many of the other available features-like advertising, chat, posting pictures, joining forums and discussions. I've also been updating my project notebook. It is easy to use and it is fun to do!

On Ravelry, I'm adamsaunt, Sue is knitzzzky, Jill is NobleKnitwit, Krista is kristaj84 and Sheryl is dukesmama. There is also a Knitwits Group called knitwits ky and we have 128 fun members. You can easily see what your fellow Knitwits are working on and view their finished objects without feeling like a stalker. NobleKnitwit is great at keeping up with the questions, comments and postings. (i'm getting better).

I highly recommend keeping up with your "notebook". You add your latest project with yarn info, needle info, pattern info, etc. It tracks your progress (or lack of progress) and remembers things that I can never remember (where I got the pattern, what needle I used, what changes I made, etc.) I also recommend putting things in your queue. Whenever I see a pattern that I like I stick it in my queue so I can find it again without doing countless random searches on the web.

Since updating my Ravelry "notebook", I was able to feng shui my desk of piles of knitting patterns, little scraps of paper filled with cryptic pattern notes, bags of yarn bands, two stacks of Knitting magazines with sticky notes everywhere, a shopping bag of stash yarn, 3 UFO's, 1 FO, and a Twix candy bar.

NobleKnitwit and I would like to do some Ravelry workshops to show you all how to unravel Ravelry to organize your life--or at least the knitting portion. Any interest?

By the way, Casey the techno-guy of Ravelry must have a great sense of humor. Sometimes when you're typing a post and you type the word Coffee, a little appears. You can also have a Martini , Pizza , kitty ,fries , sushi , muffin , Beer and red wine . It's fun to figure out which words make the little icons appear. When you find a cutie pie icon-post it on the knitwits ky discussion board.

I know I was going to blog about The 5 Hour Baby Sweater, but I've been spending too much time on Ravelry to finish it. Stay tuned, less than an hour to go! But first, .