I was listening to PixiePurl’s podcast 
this morning,(so glad to have you back!) and as I listened to her ask
“Has Ravelry killed the knitting blog?”  It dawned on me that I haven’t
blogged in months.   It’s not that I’m not involved and engaged with
the knitting community.  Now more than ever, I’m deeply involved.

So I began to reflect on what I used to blog for amd what am I doing now instead.

At
first, back in 2003, my blog was a place to share pictures of my
finished knitting projects to share with family and friends.  As I
realized other knitters were finding my blog, I began adding more
detail around the pictures becuase the readers commented and asked
about which yarn I used, etc.  So what has replaced that?  Well mostly
Ravelry, but not completely.  What Ravelry provided along with project
posting, was the groups, discussion on the things which I was working
on that others were working on too.  Ravelry also gave me the chance to
see possible projects that I might want to do by following firends who
liked to do what I do.  It didn’t however, give access to my familty to
see what I was doing, since they’re not knitters and they’re more
interested in keeping up with me, not only my knitting.  However, I
haven’t blogged in months and haven’t heard from them about it so maybe
they’re not really looking?  (If you are Mom, just leave a comment!)

At
one point in my blogging life, I started to blog about the knitting
community, my knitting life, later spinning and the process of that
experience.   I wrote about my knitting history and my familiy, as well
as my commuter knitting..  So what replaced that?  Well I guess our
video podcast Lets Knit2gether really did that.  I found a voice to speak to the knitting community about my personal stories and experiences and they
wrote me back with comments and emails! This had always been rare for
me to hear back from anyone on my blog, so I seemed to go where they
were, which apparently was not on my blog.  (If you’re lurking, leave a
comment and say “hi”!)

Then,
I used to blog just to keep people up to date on the progress I was
making on projects or the challenges I was having with my projects.
When I first started blogging, I used to think it was bad luck to post
pix of unfinished work because if something went wrong (see blue sweater) my blog would be a constant reminder of my failure.
Later on I found that I was able to deal with the failures in the hopes
that sharing my mistakes and mishaps with others could help them avoid
them. 
Now?  Well the podcast certainly has replaced that, as well as twitter and Plurk. 
Plurk has been especially useful for brief and quick updates to the
knitting community from my mobile on the road or when I’m not at my
computer.  I later discovered ping.fm which helped to keep twitter, plurk, facebook and my blog up to date with status.

So,
has Ravelry killed blogging for me?   I’d have to say “no”.  Advances
in technology, specifically Web 2.0, and how the knitting community has
adopted these tools has focused blogging on what is was originally
designed for:
A
journal and retrospective on your life and experiences.  No other
platform shows your history the way a blog does.  Just look at my first entry
in 2003 and see how I’ve evolved in 5 years.  There’s no other place
that you can discover the knitter I was and see how I became what I am
today.  So, I will continue blogging.  Will you?

Here are some recently finished projects to give you an update.



First the Morning Surf Scarf which the LetsKnit2gether Ravelers group did for August’s knitalong.  Below that is the finished Mystic Light Shawl Knitalong project