Ravelry

For years I've been very anti-Myspace. Most of my friends have Myspace profiles and, either now or at other points in their lives have been... well, addicted to this site. Now, I think that professionally this can be a really wonderful tool. Authors, musical artists, bands, librarians/libraries, movies- these groups of people often have Myspace pages to offer information about their work. It is like an enhanced webpage. Lovely, I'm all for it. However, when Susie spends her time going to her boyfriend's Myspace page, searching for evidence that he is cheating on her by looking at his comments, or comments he has left other people, or when Bob searches his ex's pictures to figure out if she has a new boyfriend yet, this enables disgusting stalker-like behavior. Barf. And frankly, I don't need friends to leave me comments about how drunk I/They/Their cat was last night, even if they DID barf on someone I hate and I'd be really excited about it. I have a cellphone and email for that sort of necessary information.
Now, rewind to before Myspace was popular. I used to have similar feelings about blogs. Most of the blogs I was seeing back in, oh 2003, were of the "look at me! look at me! see what I had for breakfast?" variety. Lovely. I don't give a crap. But then I discovered the magic that is knitting blogs. I started by reading a post on Craftster by Eunny Jang on her Union Square Market Pullover. And I thought, "Wow, this woman knits beautiful things. I want to knit beautiful things. She doesn't knit with Fun Fur. I hate fun fur. I like the patterns she works on. I think I'll read this occasionally!" Then, in a post, she linked to another blogger, and I started reading another blog, until I had 3 or 4 blogs I checked every day. Then my boyfriend showed me the RSS reader in my web browswer (Safari- for Macs) and there was no turning back.
I read blogs not to be voyeuristic and peek into others' lives. I read blogs to peek into others' knitting bags and stashes. I like to see what other people are knitting, to get ideas for what I want to knit next or to find out what yarn I want to knit with. If a post doesn't contain knitting content or pictures, I move on. I am most interested in finished objects, with details following (which is why I set my blog up this way). I am also, at home, very interested in organization. I am a librarian and crave order. I have my yarn stash and needle inventory catalogued in Excel spreadsheets. I am... a dork. So though I never imagined myself joining a social networking site (like Myspace), I am eating my words. I have fallen in love. No, not with Myspace, but with Ravelry. I believe it will change the fiber arts world. It has changed my world. It is my Excel spreadsheets combined with my Flickr collection of knitting photos combined with Craftster combined with blogs. Holy moly.
I am Cabbage on Ravelry. Join in the madness!