Luxury Knitting with Alpaca + Ravelry Thoughts

After yesterdays nerd post about blogging I’m back today as a creative knitting nerd. I started this blog with a lot of knitting, reading knitting blogs and writing about it. Since then my interested in other creative hobbies has broaden but my knitting is still going strong, especially now during winter.

When I visited my yarn-o-holic friend Marika I got a few skeins of wool and alpaca with me in a goodie bag to bring home. It’s yarn that she doesn’t want to use or have used and don’t want any more. I got the leftover of a striped cap that she both designed and knitted in silk-alpaca and the colors where pink and purple. Pink is my favorite and purple is my least liked color, but they look great together in this cap though I didn’t do the stripes exactly as the pattern said. Don’t want to follow instructions all the way and have never been good at that either. Plus I knitted it a bit longer than Marika did, because I wanted it to cover the ears well. I rather be warm than stylish!

Anyway, what a nice yarn to knit with! So smooth and lovely, a luxury yarn that I probably would never have bought for myself! When I finished it I took some self portraits of me in the cap on my parents porch (outdoor glassed in room), and yesterdays photo of the window is from that day too. I like that kind of photos a lot! Taking photos of yourself in a cap is very difficult, because my arms are too short. But you can see it anyway, and mom’s scarf that I borrowed.

Taking these photos inspired me to visit Ravelry.com, a nerd site for anyone who uses yarn a lot! If you haven’t visited it is a knit and crochet community that is still in beta mode but is functioning very well I think. I have been a member for a while but this was my first long stay at the site and I got really inspired by clicking around! It reminds me a bit of flickr. You can add other peoples projects as your favorites and create kind of your own inspiration page for example. You can search for friends and send them messages etc. I’m iHanna of course, add me if you’re on the site too. If you don’t have an account you can ask to be put on the waiting list.

There are a lot of knitting women on Ravelry, adding pattern links, photos of their yarn stash, needles and projects! You can join groups, start discussions and ask questions. So lots to do and look at. I think it’s amazing how many great photos of knitting you can find there! Creative blogging is really contributing to inspire people to take more and better images with their digital cameras. I think that is so great!