Lost in the inner sanctum

Well I finally made it into Ravelry and have spent a good few hours wandering around, thinking "This is way too much for me to ever comprehend".

The overwhelmed expression on my new icon probably gives a pretty good indication of how I am feeling. Nonetheless, I managed to track down Beth so I have one friend in there. If anyone else wants to find me, I'm theknitaholic (I can't believe no-one else had already used the name).

I fear I will be almost as bad as everyone else in my lack of description of Ravelry. It is a kind of knitters' universe - very big and constantly expanding. If you've spent a reasonable amount of time looking at knitting blogs and forums and websites and knit-a-longs on the Internet, you'll already know there is almost anything imaginable out there (who would have ever imagined we'd have a Knitting Olympics, Tour de Fleece or Sock Wars??? Not to mention specialised groups for people who want theme their knitting with their reading or other obsessions.) Well in Ravelry, all these groups are available in one place. There is a group for people who want to knit or crochet a thong (g-string) - AND they have 13 people signed up already. Seven people have formed a group for knitters with children adopted from China. Someone is trying to start up a group for people with sleep disorders - I have no doubt it will take off. And there are huge groups forming of knitters who are dieting together, fans of a particular designer, discussing their wool allergies and anything else you can imagine. Less than 48 hours after the Modern Quilt Wrap pattern hit the Internet, there was a group discussing yarn substitutes.

I gather one of the big things is keeping track of one's own projects, keeping a record of potential future projects and showing off/viewing others' yarn-stashes. I haven't got this far yet.