I'm lost in Ravelry

If you are a knitter and have been following any knitting sites out there you have probably heard of ravelry.com (if you are a member check me out my user name is bananaknits)

I heard about it from my friend Ellene Warren user name on ravelry is yarnartist. I tried to check it out but it said that it was still in beta and you have to have an account to log in and when you try to register they tell you that you will be on a waiting list. A friend of mine signed up a few days ago and he is number 63,640 and there are 8,688 people ahead of him and 530 people behind him according to their very clever up to date "waiting list checker".

So that means that people are flocking to raverly.com by the hundreds each day to sign up. This is growing by leaps and bounds. Knitting and Crocheting outnumbers the golfers in the U.S. so it is a huge hobby population. And knitters are usually gadget sort or people like to follow impossible sets of very detailed directions therefore knitters in my opinion have very early on started using computers and the internet. Myself included, blogging, chat rooms sharing pictures, yarn suggestions, events etc.

A few days ago, after putting my name on a waiting list almost 2 months ago, I finally received my coveted Ravelry invite. I have been spending every spare moment clicking here and clicking there, gathering friends, posting projects, answering messages comparing the same project made by others etc. It seems endless, I even made a connection with a young mother from Hungary. I have been spending hours and hours lost on ravelry, chatting posting meeting new friends hours and hours of entertainment.

For those of you out there who have no idea what this is...... It's a social network service for knitters and crocheters. The site is put together nicely, and who ever the web master and the genious that thought it up was very clever. You create an account with a user name mine is "bananaknits" and I was very happy that the name was still available. I have seen a couple of others using my favorite nick name but I have bananaknits.com but I digress......you create a profile, list your projects, both current and past, whether they were completed, project details such as yarn type/amount used, any alterations, etc. While this is a cool way to easily keep all of your project info in one place (it also includes a queue section where you can list potential future projects available online or in print formats), the fun comes in when you see how this info is shared.

Fellow knitters, can search projects by name or location, and the site will list people who have completed the same projects as you. How cool is that? You can view any user's page and you thus have access to what groups they belong to, projects, yarns available for trade or sell, their queue, and their blog activity if they have linked their blog. And much more I'm still discovering neat features..... so if you're a knitter check it out and put your name on the waiting list.

Overall, I think the site is pretty awesome and the word is out, what better advertisement than word of mouth. Kudos to the inventors!