Sustainable knitting

I seem to have discovered the secret to sustaining my interest in knitting -- melding knitting with the computer. On the left is a screen shot of my Ravelry homepage. As of a couple of days ago, the first page is full -- eight projects, six completed and two in progress. From someone who normally takes years to complete a singe project, this is a real break from tradition.

Ravelry is such a bizarre phenomenon. Tens of thousands of avid knitters, each taking delight in photographing and cataloguing their stashes of yarn, logging per cent progress through their current projects, tallying up huge charts of every needle they own, tagging favourite yarns, projects or designers and keeping track of all their knitting books.

I worried at first that all this obsessive organization would simply be a procrastination tool for me, but it hasn't worked out that way. I've found the site to be an invaluable resource for finding free patterns and learning some of the zillions of things I was clueless about, like whether the yarn I'd picked up at a LYS (local yarn shop in Ravelry lingo) was aran or DK weight, and what the heck a yarn-over is. A few clicks and links at Ravelry and I'm off and running with new things. The only truly frightening thing about Ravelry is that it's helped me discover how easy it is to buy beautiful yarn on-line. My self-restraint crumbles a little more every time I experience the satisfaction of completing another project.