Don’t Like Facebook? Try Another Social Network!

I always get a kick when the old and new meld together in a way that makes so much sense. For knitters, Ravelry.com takes what had become a solitary hobby in the modern era and turns it back into what it was for my grandmother–a communal one.

At the core of Ravelry is your “notebook”– a place where you can track projects, yarn you own, patterns you want to try, etc. Ravelry is powerful because it runs on a very complete database that seems to have tracked down every last pattern and yarn. You can browse patterns (and find scores of free/downloadables ones), what yarns others have used to make the projects, how much yarn they needed, and how it turned out. On the flip side, if you find a yarn you love, you can see what others have done with it. The fun of it is that you can see what everyone is making.

The community section is vibrant–with groups ranging from the knitterly (patterns, yarns, etc.) to the political (“Knitters for Obama” raised a ton of money) to the technological (“kindle knitters”). Users can “favorite” projects they like, exchange personal messages or communicate on the boards. There are frequent swaps and sales of yarn and the community self-polices using volunteer moderators and editors.

The site is aesthetically pleasing and user friendly–and it knows knitters. It has a genuine “voice” that takes knitting seriously–but not too seriously. It has only been around 2 years, but most knitters I know barely remember life before Ravelry.