· on knitting ·
My friend Kylie told me about Ravelry which describes itself as "a knit and crochet community", aka an online social network. She told me I had to sign up because (a) the waiting list was long so I would have to wait a long time to get access, and (b) there were plenty of free knitting patterns. Bait!
As it turns out, I only had to wait three weeks to get my foot in the door. Kylie was right about the free patterns tho - there are plenty :) Ahhh, knitter's heaven. But wait ... there's more. A whole community of people with a single common interest, sharing their knitting projects (photos and other details of their socks, jumpers, scarves and other stuff) and rating patterns in terms of difficulty and the amount of joy the project gave them.
Not only that, but there are also groups that members can join, you know, to meet in the real world. I joined three: Australian knitters, KnitML (naturally - for those of us who want a standardised markup language for knitting) and Sydney Sity Klickers (or "stitch & bitch" as I call it - SnB - although there's absolutely no bitching involved). I've met the SnB crowd in Newtown a couple of times, and they are the most welcoming, friendly crowd I could have hoped to come across, being a newcomer to Sydney and all.
One of my fellow knitters at SnB, Bex, told me about a group she read about who are so enviro-friendly they knit their own tampons. Oh yeah, it's a whole new world out there.
ANYWAY, I'm currently fantasizing that somebody will set up a global network just the same as Ravelry, but for activists. When it comes to knitting, Ravelry leaves Facebook for dead, and the same would be true for a specialist activist network where experienced activists could give tips to novices. Activists could outline which projects they were working on, what they hoped to achieve, and what they did (or didn't) achieve. Who knows - they might even come up with a universal way to measure campaign outcomes. Go on, indulge me :) Please :)
Monday January 21, 2008
Categories: Campaigning General
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Universal way to measure campaign outcomes? I have yet to meet a campaigner who has any way – or, for that matter, even bothers with such mundane, corporate issues as measured outcomes. So no, sorry, I can’t indulge you on that one.
— Mark 22 January 2008 #
I didn’t know you were a knitter! My friends (& colleagues) use and adore Ravelry, I decided to wait until it’s out of beta – I don’t need another procrastination tool right now!
I can’t wait, though – from what I’ve seen over people’s shoulders, it looks awesome. I agree – I wish more people would create things like Ravelry for all my passions & hobbies.
— Emily 29 January 2008 #