10 Reasons Why I Love Ravelry

1. Ravelry has let me connect and learn from other knitters when I had nobody that cared about knitting.

2. Ravelry lets me share my projects no matter how simple or complicated they are.

3. Ravelry has an awesome community for everything you can imagine!

4. Ravelry lets me find Local Yarn Stores (LYS) so I can shop for yarn in person instead of going online all of the time.

5. Ravelry understands that I have more ambition than I have time or money and lets me store any number of free patterns in my library.

6. Ravelry lets me have a place to catalog all of my yarn so I can know how much I have and lets me see how much I have used.

7. Ravelry provides a much needed ego boost when I need to show off something awesome that non-knitters just don't understand.

8. Ravelry gets it when I vent about not being able to finish a second sock because my sleep deprived brain was convinced that I knit enough to start the toe (hint: I was an inch off)

9. Ravelry is a horrible enabler with knitting and knitting accessories and I love them for it.

10.  Ravelry helps to let me know that I am not alone in my passion for knitting and that I am no less a person for letting my brain and fingers have a workout while making a beautiful and useable object.

Thank you Jess and Casey for bringing Ravelry into existence and for sharing it with the world.

The Blank Page Syndrome

This happens to me each time that I sit down to write up a blog post recently. I end up staring at a blank page on the computer screen trying to figure out how to write down what I have been doing. The trick is that I have actually been pretty busy living life and so much has happened that I simply don't know how to share it coherently with others.

For instance, last weekend my aunt and uncle visited my family and we went to go see the boulder fields. It is exactly what you would expect and nothing like you have seen. It is a lake of giant boulders. I actually went out a little ways on the giant rocks and I am so proud of myself. When I was younger, you couldn't have paid me enough to go out as far as I did (and that even took a while still). It is a great test of dexterity and balance.

I finished and have been wearing my Wishing for Spring green socks! I love them to death. They are my only pair of hand knit socks at the moment because I have officially retired my Hermione's Everyday Socks and my Blueberry Waffle socks. It has been so long since I've actually had a pair of KP Felici socks that I forgot how wonderful they are on your feet. And ever since I have been washing them with Soak, they have been even softer. Luckily, they seem to be holding up well at the gauge I knit them in and the garter stitch ribbing is so easy to do that it might become my go-to no-thought sock pattern for a while.

My beloved Kromski Sonata has also been dragged out and put to work. I have successfully finished spinning 8 oz of light brown alpaca lace weight. It is drying in the bathroom and will hopefully be completely dry by tomorrow so I can re-skein it and get an accurate yardage on it. I am hoping to make an aeolian shawl out of it, but the yardage will determine what I make. Besides, I have to finish my juice box socks and my friend's wedding shawl first.

So, I guess the next time I am sitting down staring at a blank page, I just need to start writing. After this little block, my planned posts should go smoothly and we can really get some good times going on in my little corner of the internet.

Randomly on a Wednesday

1. The knitting on my socks is going slow. I am just past the set up for the gusset decreases on one sock and just getting ready to knit down the heel flap on the other.

2. Saw Maleficent yesterday. It wasn't the greatest movie on the planet, but I would pick it up on DVD. It took an interesting take on the tale and it was fun. The only downside was that I figured out the climax of the movie right before it hit. I'm getting too smart for movies.

3. My room is getting along. It is painted now. We just need to put up the trim.

4. I've been living out of my car and at my fiance's house for about three weeks now.

5. I'll be glad when my room is done.

6. Slowly becoming obsessed with needlepoint lace and embroidery. The newest issue of Piecework isn't helping that recently. Call me Queen Victoria with my lace problem.

7. I really need to work on the feather and fan shawl.

8. Salted caramel hot chocolate with a dab of Hershey's cocoa powder added in is delicious.