Huffington Post---Am I A Artsy/Crafty Crazy Because of Ravlery

First off, I will offer this up, I am a member of the Ravelry.com community. With this said, yesterday while reading through Huffingtonpost.com, they had an article about the craziest/zaniest on line social networks. Yep, you got it, Ravelry was listed in this article. They labeled the members of Ravelry as "Artsy-Crafty" people who knit or crochet. Well, I defintely do not consider myself as "artsy-crafty" but rather someone who likes to take what I would call "a couple of skiens of yarn and knit it into something that comes out as a hat, scarf, shawl,sweater and/or sock. It is amazing sometimes how the yarn and/or color knits up into a finished project. And I have participated in test knits for designers which have challenged and enhanced my knitting skills.

Back to Ravelry, yes it is a social network, but it is not just about knitting, crocheting and/or designing. It is a place where people have come together because of a common interest which is knitting, crocheting and/or designing a pattern. On this site, there are groups (which it is your choice to join or not) who participate in Mug, Wine and/or Yarn Swaps, Crock Pot Recipes/topics, Politics, Techniques and also where designers look for individuals to test their patterns before they are published. Now I have only listed a small number of these groups, because there are many.

People have what is called a "Ravatar" which is their ID and they can be pretty unique. It is interesting to see the pictures and/or characters people will use along with their rav name.

What I like about Ravelry, is that you connect with people all over the world, yes we cross state and country borders. People are not judged by their appearance, economic standing, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc, etc. Some might consider this community kind of "high schoolish", but I do not as I remember in high school, if you weren't this or that you might not be allowed into this or that group. However, this does not mean there are not individuals you come across that may not like you or you may not like them, well you just don't connect and/or converse with them.

Considering Ravelry just passed their 1M mark (yes Million), there must be a whole lot of "artsy/crafty, crazy/zany poeple" out there and I am glad to be part of this community.

I'm Back and So are the Girls

Well we got back from our long trip over to Europe and the cruise in late October.

The first Thursday, I headed over to the knit shop and no one was there except Adrienne. So her and I had a chance to visit and talk about my trip.

With the weather getting a little cooler and all, more knitters are starting to show up. As I had Chloe with me this past week, we didn't stay over at the knitting shop that long. But we did pick out some "bright pink" yarn for her 1st knitted sweater from Grandma. It was great seeing everyone starting to come back and doing their knitting of their projects.

Last week, I took a purse class presented by Lorna Miser. Lorna used to own "Lorna's Laces". She just published a new book and after meeting her, learning some new techniques for lining purses and all bought a copy of her book. Yes, she signed it as well. Lorna is a pretty cool person and has lots of patience. Our group had a great time with her. So now I have a new project on my needles, a sweater for Chloe from Lorna's book. As Chloe's favorite color is "pink" having to do figure out where I want to place the pattern of reverse ss on the sweater. Can't wait to see how it comes out. I'm also knitting up a "test hat" for someone as well.