There’s been a heck of a lot of buzz out in the blogosphere lately about Ravelry. It think it’s tied to the new application that lets one track one’s place in line for sign ups, and if Kathleen‘s recent starts are any indicator of the norm, we’re talking people flocking in to it by the thousands.
In light of this, I have a confession to make. I am not on the Ravelry wait-list. I have, in fact, been on Ravelry for a good 2-3 months now, having received a generous invite from Jodi (who gets those kind of perks because she’s so cool, cool enough to spread the love around with invitations and high-fives-of-1-degree-of-separation connections to other cool kids).
I guess I didn’t realize how lucky I’d got it. I mean, it seemed nifty and all, when it was first announced, and I did sign onto the wait list quickly (before my invite). I’ve logged on (user “aemmeleia”, of course!). I’ve photographed some of my stash and logged my needles and added what books I can in the beta mode. It has noticeably caused my Projects page to be horridly out of date. And yet, I haven’t been religious about signing in, logging yarns/tools/projects, or chatting on forum thread X.
Now I see how much other people are wishing and hoping to be a part of Ravelry, I feel a bit guilty for having taken it all for granted. Maybe tonight, I’ll go e-stash more yarn, or see what’s being said on a few threads. I certainly do think Ravelry is a great tool, and will probably only get better and better (especially if they add a spinning section!). And I promise if I get any invites to give out, I won’t be tardy in spreading the love even further.
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And speaking of spreading the love, Shelly, aka the Heathen Housewife, is having a great contest: just leave her a comment following her rules and you could win a copy of “Victorian Lace Today” and a skein of lace-weight merino, hand-dyed to your liking! (I’d love this so much, even with a shawl on the needles already! Probably won’t win, but it’s still good to get the word out!)
Aemmeleia's Ephemera 
Just a quick note before someone one freaks out and sends us hate mail about being elitist ;)
There was a Time Before the Invite List (also known as March/April). We had a very small group of testers made up of knitters that Jess knew in real life or online. It was a mix of bloggers, blogless, designers, yarnies – all of the different types of users that we were trying to build for… Later, when we needed more testers, we gave them a few invites each. After that, when we needed more testers (ie. we wanted to get up to 1000) we put up the infamous invite request form.
Thanks for the clarification, Casey!
As I’ve said, I really didn’t realize how lucky I was to get into Ravelry so early, and I’m humbled now by seeing how many others are waiting, hoping… It’s a phenomenal site, and I’m so glad to be able to be a part of it!
Ravelry is pretty fun, but I have to admit I don’t do as much stuff with it as I could. I still don’t have my queue really filled out, and barely have any of my yarn inventory updated. But I just added you as a friend (I’m GraceIvy on there)!
PS Thanks for the tip on Jaeggerspun Zephyr and Lisa Souza’s hand paints! I will definitely use those in the future!