Ravelry is a knitter's best friend

Buried deep in my stash bins were six balls of Gedifra Samina in a gunmetal gray. A blend of wool and nylon, it has a wonderful sheen that turns it silvery in some lights and gives it life.

I bought it years ago to make this shrug-like, cocoonish garment that could be wrapped, twisted and worn upside down and backwards. It looked divine on the emaciated model in the photograph. I had visions of myself wearing it to the type of soirees I'm never invited to and making a breath-taking entrance.

It was a lustful infatuation with yarn and pattern.


With my new commitment to knitting instead of buying, I burrowed through the stash to find the yarn and the pattern. The romance with the yarn has withstood time; with the pattern, not so much. The older, wiser me looked at the pattern and started to wonder how it would REALLY look on a short, round middle-aged (or am I post-middle-aged?) woman.

I logged into Ravelry, A loud hurrah to all those proud, knitting women who actually model their own project. It instantly became clear that no matter who knit that pattern, no matter what yarn they used -- whether they belted it, twisted it, wore it upside down or inside out -- no one looked good in that design.

All I could envision was a new knitters group that knitted -- not baby blankets or chemo hats -- but that pattern to donate to women recovering from anorexia, the only women who could carry off that design.

I filed the pattern and sat petting the lovely deep gray Gedifra. My mind went loose like a hunting dog sniffing out alternative uses for the yarn.

Ravelry's good for that, too.