I'm considering myself to be a lucky knitter these days. About a week ago I received my invitation to participate in Ravelry. I found out about Ravelry a while ago when Cara first talked about it on her blog. I am always ever so curious about knitting community projects -- especially ones that people have nice things to say about -- that look to involve organizational tools for knitting. So I trundled on over there and put my name on the waiting list to get to try it out and be part of their widening beta test.
Last week I got my invitation to come and join the party (before I go any farther, you should all know that they are letting people in in the order that they put their name on the list, and they are letting people in as fast as they think the system can tolerate new people -- there's no favoritism going on here). I clicked the link, got signed up and have had a real blast playing around in the Ravelry sandbox. As a knitter and a sometimes coder/webmonkey, this is one of those things that I wish I had thought of myself. It's well thought out, easy to use, and fun. Fun to the point of kind of being addictive -- I just can't seem to stop myself from plugging in my projects, stash, needles and books from my knitting library. And when I take a break from that, it's fun to go trolling through looking for friends, seeking out interesting new patterns, and seeing what other yarns people have been making some of my old favorite patterns in. Heck. I even opened up a Flickr account so that I can use the photo importing feature.
Want to see what else is being put together for Ravelry? Just click here -- Jessica and her husband Casey, have put together a screen shot tour that describes it all (what it is and what it isn't) better than I can.
Ravelry is a very cool tool and a blast to play with. I really hope that Jessica and Casey are successful getting this thing going and ramping it up. If you do go on over and put your name in to be invited, please remember that it's still in beta (i.e. still not entirely ready for prime time as far as the developers are concerned) and please BE PATIENT and charitable in your thoughts if you have to wait. This is a two person show, folks -- and I think both of those people have full time jobs that don't involve developing a cool website for the knitting community -- and it's being put together as a free resource. It's clear that Jessica and Casey want to make this something that every knitter can participate in and enjoy, but that they also want to release something that can handle a lot of people and that provides a good use experience. That process takes time.
And cool, well built things like Ravelry are very much worth waiting for!
I put my name in a couple of weeks ago. I can't wait to be let in the door.
I put my name on the invites list and can't wait to be invited or for ravelry to open!
I think its a shame that there have been people harassing the developers even though they've put in their free time to do it..
Ravelry is very fun and addictive, I agree!
I have my name on the waitlist and have been patiently waiting. It's great to have that screenshot tour because now I have a more clear idea of what it's all about. I guess I should start going through my iPhoto album and see which ones I want to upload to my Flickr account.
As a programmer, I understand how things go on the backend. It's not as simple as picking out colors to paint a room (well, if you have a great sense of color and have a vision, that is . . . ). Maybe some of those people harassing the developers could get together and slip them a nice stack of greenbacks to pay for the development stage?
I am right there with you. I got my invite last week as well and it has sucked up a good portion of my life this week. As a fan of your blog I'll be looking for you!
I'm way too obsessed with ravelry but haven't yet had a chance to add everything in there. Nor have I knitted or blogged a thing in months. But add me as a friend anyway! 'Lynn' is my name over there. Obviously I signed on very early!
After I saw the screenshot for needle organization and yarns/patters, I was hooked. I don't know how many more Web 2.0 things I need to be signed up for, but I hope to get some good use out of this. I put my name on the list. Thanks for your review of Ravelry!
It is so difficult to wait patiently for my invite! I keep on checking my spam filters just to make sure it hasn't been lost.
Ooh, I just got my invite last week too! I've been struggling to not just go berserk about it. The toddler factor helps, but lordy is it addictive!
Glad you enjoy it! I signed up about a month ago. But I don't have Flikr, so I must now get that. But I also just quit my PT job YAY! So I may have time to input my stuff at last. It seems great to have all that info on hand, since you can check it from any computer and know what you have instead of trying to remember small details.
I too lurve Raverly! I was also going to blog about it today, but you have done such a great job, I think I will post about my sockapalooza socks instead. I can't wait until they open it up to everyone... It's like facebook for knitters :)
Thank you for blogging about this. I very much respect your opinion and appreciate the overview. I confess to getting my nose a bit out of joint, accusations of snobbery and all, but your explanations make it clear that I had it all wrong. I've gone and signed up.
I just got my invitation on Monday, and work is very much suffering as a consequence! It's so fun and so clever. Good to see you there!
Hey - it's me, Casey :)
Make sure you ask Jess to hook you up with a designer profile. You can put in all of your patterns, see who has knit them and what they've made, neat stuff like that.
We have lots more to do for designers - many are interested in selling through us (vs Paypal + Payloaz or whatever), the profile page could be a lot better, and so on.
Welcome!
eek. sorry, gotta post again. To Lola - "It's not as simple as picking out colors to paint a room" You are exactly right! "The developers" is just me although at this particular moment in time I'd prefer sleep to cash.
It looks like it will be a huge success once it opens up to the general population. Actually it looks like it's already a huge success. I'm patiently waiting for my invite. At least, I'm trying to be patient. :-)
What! I signed up four weeks ago and I still haven't received my invitation. Sorry, just pouting...
I got my invite this monday, and I am totally obsessed with it. I don't remember how long ago I signed up, it was quite a few weeks ago.
I signed up weeks ago and got my invite recently. I totally agree with you about how much fun it is. I am spending so much time adding things and looking around.
I am in utter awe at ravelry. At first I was expecting something really basic and have been completely blown away!
I was reading your review and thinking that I signed up around the same time you did, since I found the link off your blog so I checked my email and woo! I got my invite today!
I, too, was lucky to get a golden ticket last week. It is such a time-suck! What a great idea, though.