It must be viral

I have a wicked, unrelenting case of startitis. I spent all weekend pulling out new skeins of yarn and contemplating starting them all. I almost started a summer top (Rosebud – knit without sleeves) a new pair of socks or twelve. A new sweater (this one) a new shawl, and even a baby cardigan or two.

This is unusual for me. Not the startitis, the urge to cast on new things is my constant companion, fed by the blogs and the stuff I see my knitting friends knit, but it’s pretty unusual for me to be smitten by so much when I am deleriously happy with what I’m making.

To wit:

I am in the middle of the very beautiful Kauni cardigan, for which I have a big love.

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I am happily knitting Cassie’s Loksins socks

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Which are beautiful and perfect and move me to fits of good temper and amusement when I am looking for slightly fussier knitting.

I am knitting a gorgeous pair of very plain socks from Webs “Kangaroo Dyer” sock yarn in “Macaw”

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which is so simple and beautiful that it needs be nothing else.

Plus today is Tuesday and I am going to spin something delicious,

So why the rampaging case of startitis?

Ravelry. I got on Ravelry. (Sneak peek here) I fell down and I can’t get up. Get yourself on the waiting list to be a beta tester if you aren’t there already. (They are adding people in a controlled way to make sure they get the bugs out.) It’s like smack. You want to see who’s knit a certain pattern and compare all the variations? Click. Click. You want to see everything everybody on there ever made out of Kid Silk Haze? Click. Click. How about see your “neighbours”? Ravelry keeps track of all your projects then shows you who’s knitting the stuff you’re knitting. Click. Want to see what patterns are the most popular? Click. What if you wanted to look at all the pictures for sport weight ladies cardigans? Click. How about all the hats in Noro? Click. What’s in Juno’s stash? Click. Hey I like that – what are all the designs from Sivia Harding? Click. Hey, what do people think is a hard pattern? Click. Wow. That is hard. I’m going to put that in my Ravelry queue to look at later. Click. Want to browse the “ugh” files and see other knitters disasters? Click. Click Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

A great honking, community building, idea generating, creativity boosting, knitter organizing, time-suck of happy smack.

Click.