Unraveled

The blog has moved to https://blog.ravelry.com

LGBTQI+ knitters, crocheters, weavers, spinners, designers, dyers, yarnies, educators, writers, publishers, and shop owners: you are a vital part of our yarn world.

On the 49th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, we hoist the pride and trans pride flags in solidarity with LGBTQI+ Ravelers everywhere. We celebrate you and we stand against hate, bigotry and discrimination.

For the next 5 days we are donating 100% of our profits to the following organizations:

Wed, June 27th		Gender Spectrum
Thu, June 28th		Trans Lifeline
Fri, June 29th		GLSEN
Sat, June 30th		GLAD
Sun, July 1st		Minus18

— Casey, Jess, Mary-Heather, Sarah and Christina 💖💖💖 ✊🏿✊🏼✊🏽✊🏻✊🏾

The most that we earn from a $6 USD pattern sale is 21 cents so if you’d like to support one of these orgs, consider giving directly! If you pay us for ads or pattern sales we’ll donate the share of your bill that is from these 5 days.

I like highlighting projects that have helped others in some way and I usually do this by selecting projects with lots of “are these notes helpful?” votes.

This time I tried something different. When planning projects, especially larger ones, many people collect projects that are inspirational and helpful in their favorites. If you do this, when you begin a project of your own, your related favorites will appear in the right margin so that you can quickly find them.

I found people who may have been planning in this way by looking for folks with clusters of favorites that relate to the same pattern. Then I looked for projects that were favorited by many different people who were (likely) planning a project. The results were really interesting and I’m thinking that I could do more with this in the future. Here are a few that I picked out.

Above: ccdoug’s Sophie Loves Lilla Bjorn Loves Polly Plum Winter Blanket, aknittinglinguist’s Vintersol and Febr12’s Rug.

taniaho’s silver forest, reddoormeg’s 2014 Weather Blanket and gosik’s Skyfall.

Nell’s Carbeth, luuv2knit’s Zweig and knittingfiona’s Multnomah.

Let’s look at what some of the machine knitters of Ravelry have been up to!

-claudine- hand dyed natural yarn and knit this Bug Sweater on a Passap E6000.
ableramm used all kinds of Wollmeise for her Painted Ladies of Cape May (Brother KH-960).

HandSoOnKnits’ Machine Avenue (Silver Reed LK-150) is her first machine project!
emteedee’s Blümchenjacke (Brother KH-930) is based on Kirsten M. Jensen’s Mekko.

KristiMil’s Cross the seven seas is her own design.
perkypattern’s drawstring bag · skull + leopard skin was created using an All Yarns Are Beautiful hacked Brother.

If you own a Brother KH-9xx and controlling it from a computer sounds cool, check out http://ayab-knitting.com and the AYAB group on Ravelry.

If you don’t visit any machine knitting groups and you’d like to, here are some good starting points: Machine Knitting, Aussie Machine Knitters or Maschinenstricker.

Every year in June, we fly the rainbow pride flag on Ravelry. June is LGBT Pride Month and it is a time when people all over the world celebrate diversity and community and stand together against hate and bigotry. Pride happens in June in remembrance of the Stonewall riots, which began on June 28th, 1969. After a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, transgender women of color led an uprising to fight back against the police brutality that the LGBTQ community was, and still is, experiencing. These riots were the spark that began the modern LGBTQ rights movement. On Ravelry, we usually hoist the flag around the June 28th anniversary and keep it up into July.

We fly the flag in solidarity with LGBTQI+ Ravelers, to celebrate diversity of gender and sexuality, to state that we stand against hate, bigotry and discrimination, and as a reminder that so many in our community are suffering.

The yarn community would be absolutely impoverished without LGBTQI+ knitters, crocheters, weavers, spinners, designers, dyers, yarnies, educators, writers, publishers, and shop owners. We who love this craft need to stand against hate and work and advocate for inclusion and equality. Not only in our yarn world, but locally, nationally, and globally as well.

JessicaMF, cassidy, maryheatherb, & a lot of Ravelers at New York Sheep and Wool, 2008

In the Spring of 2005, Jess blogged about an idea that we had for an online knitting community. Our idea was to “create an encyclopedia of cool patterns (and yarn too??) and mix in blogging and other social aspects”. A place where people could “share their completed creations, get help for works in progress, and get ideas for future projects”.

Internet friends liked the idea and after a lot of prodding and friendly encouragement and a little tinkering with the idea, our New Year’s resolution in 2007 was to seriously work on the site.

Things progressed quickly after that and our idea grew and grew. Jess and I were completely engrossed in building Ravelry and we barely left our apartment. In February, we had something that functioned and the first couple projects were added. By April, we had 30 friends and friends of friends testing the site. We added the forums and message box so that people could communicate with each other. Somewhere along the way, we decided that our goal was to be able to invite people to try the site during the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May. 10 years ago yesterday, the secret was out and we started sending out beta invitations.

The first wave of Ravelers were full of ideas and eager to help and we realized that this project was going to be much bigger than we originally thought. That summer, it became our full time job. By the end of 2007, more than 55,000 people were using Ravelry and many more were waiting to try it. To the 2 of us, it felt like a billion people. It was unreal.

Now there are 5 of us. We’ve been working on Rav for 10 years, which seems like a lifetime on the Internet. We’ve only been able to do this because of all of you. You have generously given your time to moderate the main boards, help people in the forums, edit and maintain the pattern and yarn databases, or run a Ravelry group for others. You have shared information about your projects and yarn, making Ravelry more valuable for everyone else. You have directly paid for Ravelry by advertising selling patterns, or buying a shirt and you have supported those designers and advertisers.

I have no idea what the next 10 years will hold. I’m sure that we’ll have fun. Technology is probably going to get a little weird. I’d love to see more people-centered sites sprout and cooperate and connect with ours. We are going to keep giving our all to this community. We will never stop working in a way that respectful of you: your data, your time, and your contributions to Ravelry.

Thank you for a wonderful 10 years!

❤ Cassidy, Jess, Mary-Heather, Sarah and Christina

Boston Globe, 2007.
I’m pretty sure our parents were less impressed and more “a website about what now?”

Bobsolda and Ravelers, New York Sheep and Wool, October 2009

[ Picture a group shot of the 5 of us, smiling and waving at you, now a little older and wiser. The next time we are all together in real life we will have to take one! ]

I bet that you know a kid who loves dinosaurs. I live with one. This morning we listened to one of her favorite songs, “Dinosaur Stomp”. The singer wears a shiny gold fanny pack and rhymes: “I hang with Littlefoot, he gives me great input, we eat at Pizza Hut”. My daughter doesn’t remember those pizza ads because she is 5 but she loves the song anyway, because anything that involves dinosaurs is awesome. Here are some awesome projects that involve dinosaurs.

Above, on the left, is SpinKnitUp’s CavySaurus Rex. This little squeaker is very cute in his dino costume. More importantly, his name is Pete the Cat kavisagi invented an amazing Dino Cowl and TendonitisSuitsMe made this baby a Triceratops hat.

Above: dendrobe’s Cera Tops Baby Blanket will captivate this baby for years, kjayneb made the cutest Stegosaurus, and kamidake created an artful modification that isn’t quite a dinosaur but that is so cool that I had to include it: Laly Thunderbird

February is my least favorite month in New England because it I start to feel like I am finished with winter and I’ve forgotten, again, that it’ll be a long time before things are green. I’m not really sure what that has to do with fruit. I started looking at garden-related projets and then I got a little sidetracked after finding this Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Above: BistitchualE’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (complete with fruits, vegetables and sweets!), fleurdelys516’s Pineapple Beanie and SweetBeej’s Carrots and Beets.

Pepsie’s Fruit Trio, Dirka’s Garden playmat for her grandaughter, and Yvonne2104’s Orchidee.

kitknits1’s Beekeeper Hats, amberfyre’s Fruitmarks, and vikkyzm’s *legwarmers* made using the Garden Dreams Mittens pattern.

Many of these were gifts and wow, I wish there had been photos of the happy people receiving these awesome presents!

Many Ravelry groups have threads where members share photos of their finished objects. I thought it’d be fun to visit a few of these groups to see what people are sharing lately. If you’d like a place to show off your project photos after you mark them as finished, you might like to look and see if some of your favorite things (yarns, designers, podcasts, tv shows, whatever) have groups with FO threads.

Above:

4. Tullymongan’s Mellow Mittens (found in I Make Mittens)
5. Grassharp’s Zitronenfalter (found in Crochet Shoulder Wrappers)
6. kelly-ann’s Blue Rainbow Socks (found in The Yarn Hoarder Podcast)

Above:

4. theemuts’ Earflap Hats for Charity (found in Charity Knitting)
5. Katiep43’s Land Girl Socks (found in Sock Knitters)
6. lilp00hbear’s Summer Fade in Fall (found in DreaReneeKnits)

A tiny tip: when you are looking at a thread full of projects, you can search them using our regular search by clicking the link at the top that looks like this:

It is hat season for many of us!

Above: Tasmin21’s Joyful & Bright Slouch Hat, Tasha82’s Fat Hatty and NishiKnits’ Felicity Mechita.

Above: PetraMar’s My Cashmere Hat, krumel’s Samsara, and aliciamarin’s Pussyhat Project #1.