The benefits of Ravelry

I still meet a lot of people who don't know Ravelry, or who went there once and didn't find much.  If they say that, I would posit that they didn't look.  There are a lot of people who don't use it fully, who only go there for patterns, who only check out yarns.  A lot of people pick their one or two things they find it useful for and that is as far as it goes. 

I put me in the middle.  I don't use all the bells and whistles but I do appreciate the ways I do use it. One of the most important things it does for me, is track my projects.

When I start a project, one of the first things I do, ranking right up there with finding the right needles, is load the project to Ravelry.

I pop in the yarn from my stash, I list a needles size (I used to not do this till one time, it was information I could really have used), if I have them, I put up a first picture.  I try to keep the projects I have worked on up to date.  It is a sort of Saturday reckoning and it kind of directs me to the things I really want to work on for the weekend.

And some days, when everything is just too darn much, I find comfort not just the wool I wear, but the memories of wool already knit.  I can look at a long list of things that turned out and whatever the days troubles are, and find a peaceful list on which to rest my weary eyes.    

Sometimes that list of completed things is part of preparing for knitting the next thing.  What would I do differently?  What worked really really well?  What is it about that one, that made me so comfortable wearing it? Looking at past project helps me make the next one better.

My projects become part of the greater whole.  I don't think a very valuable part of that whole.  I don't have pictures of me in my sweaters. I have a long tradition of taking pictures of them in the raw stage after the knitting is done and before the blocking.  I have tried to improve that but it just is the way it is.

I love Ravelry.  I love how it lets you do the things that you want to use it for, and in a way that you want to use it. Nobody is shoving anything in your face. Not like some other sites, that shall remain unnamed.  

This is my little shoutout.  It my own little Ravelry appreciation day.  Thanks, Casey and Jess.