My friend Debra sent me an invitation a few weeks ago to join Ravelry, the social networking site for knitters and although I haven’t done much more than set up a page and post my one-and-only sweater, I’m sort of fascinated by the convergance of knitting and social networking.

While I’ve fallen in love with knitting, as much for the magical way it stops that buzzing in my brain after a long day at work as for the actual product I’m creating, I’m not one of those people who wants to go hang out at the knitting store with a group of other women. I hate groups — I admit it. And by nature I’m the sort of person who just wants to figure it out myself — however, there’s something interesting about the cultural revival of knitting and the way that knitting circles seem to be the new book group of our age. I think knitting groups are great — I just haven’t gotten over my own reluctance to leave home and my instinctive aversion to group activities to go join one.

And hence, Ravelry. Which looks very cool even though I’ve only scratched the surface. Someplace to troll for cool patterns or see what yarns other people are using and when you get stuck there’s someplace to go post a question. Very interesting.