24 million, 24.1 million to be more correct. Wow.
Did you ever wish you had time to go through all those hits? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to work through each of the pages that a quick search like that brought up. Sure there would be a bunch of sales pitches and a lot of flotsam, but still, if only 25% of the hits were things that would inspire you...
It is hard to imagine the volume of knitting on the net.
Which brings me to Ravelry. Almost 300,000 strong and still, many many of the knitters I meet each day don't go there. So many say its not their sort of thing, but I keep telling them, its your thing. Really.
Ravelry has brought so much richness into my life. Through Ravelry I found a community of knitters locally, a community of fibre persons, a community of vibrant, interesting people who are as compelled by this subject of yarn in the oddest of ways, as am I. I feel very at home among its citizens.
Quite unfairly, I find it odd when people aren't interested in knowing about Ravelry. I mean it is up to them, and it isn't going to be every body's cup of tea, but as a resource for patterns, it is the best of all possible sources. I mean how can even the most uninterested of knitters and crocheters not be interested in that vast reserve of patterns just sitting there waiting for you to look them over, decide between them, and then knit them.
Which gets me to Knitty. For many of us, Knitty is one of the first really interesting things we find on the Internet. It comes up near the top of the knitting search. It has been around 6 years and these days, 6 years is a lifetime for a publication, particularly an Internet publication. Still as huge a resource as Knitty is, as wonderful as it is, a lot of people don't know about it.
I talk about Knitty and Ravelry all the time at work. They are such inspiring places to visit, and such valuable tools and no matter who or what you are, your knitting and crocheting life will be better for visiting there. Even if you never use a single pattern from either, even if you never find Twist Collective, or Knotions or any of the hundreds of wonderful online places, not going, not looking at Knitty and Ravelry is a disservice to knitting and to yourself.
I preach to the unconverted, and all I can do is tell them to visit, tell them to look at patterns, and hope that they might find these places even a 100th as interesting as I think they are.
So if you never googled knitting, or crochet, or needlework, try it. Who knows what delights await.
