Reveling at Ravelry

One reason I'm not making as quick progress on the baby blanket as I'd like is because I've been busy playing on Ravelry.

For non-knitters, Ravelry is a new site for the knitting community. It's in beta testing. These two geniuses, Casey and Jess, thought it would be nice to have a site where knitters could post pictures, share patterns, chat in forums - just about everything you can think of.

The buzz about Ravelry began in the spring. As more people joined, a waiting list developed. In order to keep the "bugs" to a minimum, only a certain number of new members are invited each week. Hopefully, it will go "live" in a month or so.

As of last week, there are over 7,000 users and 15, 500 on the waiting list.

I received my invite while I was on vacation in July. I signed up as soon as I got home.

Here's my Ravelry page (it's also under links on the right)

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/MaisonCouRouge

It's just a whole lot of fun- I've got folks like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee-aka the Yarn Harlot, David Reidy from the Sticks and Strings podcast and Brenda Dayne from Cast-On in my "friends" list. For a knitter, this is like having J.K. Rowling, Nicole Kidman and St. Peter as buddies. Fellow knitters leave comments about your works-in-progress and hearts if they like what they see. Always positive and kind (knitters seldom, if ever, criticize one another's work), it's like a pat on the back or a giant "well done".

I also love the groups. I've joined a bunch- from knitters who love to travel, to those of us who love knitting and chocolate, to knitters who attended women's colleges. Just about any other interest a knitter could have.

They only problem is, I've found so many projects I want to do, I will be knitting until I'm 150 years old.

And if I spend much more time at Ravelry, I won't get ANY knitting done.