Ravelry

ravelry.com is undoubtedly the best resource for knitters you'll find. I've only recently registered, but I can already say that it surpasses my expectations.

They've everything you could ever want and some more. First of all it is like the FB of knitters. Every user gets a personal page where he/she can post their projects and also keep a record of his/her yarn stash. They've forums you can ask questions and read other people's opinions about stuff you didn't know existed. There is so much to learn, so much great information for beginners (and advanced knitters too).

But it is much more than that. So much that it would be impossible (or at least too cumbersome) to include everything Ravelry allows on this post.

The main thing is they have a nearly infinite number of patterns, many of them free. Of course the excess of options can be a very bad thing, how will you find what you're looking for in a sea of things you don't want? The good news is that their search system is very, very good. And you can order the results in many ways including popularity. The good thing is that popular patterns will be much less prone to mistakes because they've been corrected [Note: if you find a mistake in a pattern, you can and should send a message to the author through Ravelry and he/she will be exceedingly thankful and happy to correct it]. You can also check what other people say about a pattern, either on the comments left in the pattern page, or through the notes on projects that use that particular pattern.

At first I couldn't understand why would anyone care to keep a registry of their stash on Ravelry, not a bad idea per se, but I've got better things to do with my time. One reason to do it is that you can search patterns by yarn. Of course you don't need to keep the yarn on the stash for that, but it makes it easier if you ever want to repeat the search.

The very best things about Ravelry is the ability to look at other people's projects. You can, for example, easily find every project that corresponds to a certain pattern or uses a certain yarn. Together with Ravelry amazing search engine, this feature makes Ravelry every knitters best friend, because when you're still planning a new project, the best way to start is to look at a bunch of wonderful things you can do, and also once you've chosen a pattern, looking at the results obtained by others who have knitted that particular pattern may be the most important thing you do. You can discover the pattern has mistakes or problems and what others have done to fix them, you can also find out that the final product looks very good on the pattern's picture, but terrible in "real life" (a common example is sweaters that look great on flat-chested models, but terrible on someone with breasts).

Last but not the least, every pattern (and yarn) is rated by users, this feature is also very helpful when choosing a new pattern to knit (or buying new yarn).

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