Cyber Evolution

We first went "online" in early 1998, with a Mac Quadra and a dialup account. I soon found all sorts of sewing info, which led me to the Sew4Kids4Fun email discussion list on Quiltropolis. I soon had all sorts of cyberfriends all over the world who shared my love for sewing. Over the years I've had the pleasure of meeting several in person, despite my DH's initial fears that everyone on the internet were axe murderers! And on 9/11 one of the first things I did when I got home from my Washington DC job, where I could see the Pentagon from my office, was to post to the Sew4Kids4Fun list that I was ok.
The Sewfers started sharing pictures of what they had sewn, so I soon found myself with a PictureTrail Account. I learned to have my pictures developed onto a floppy then a CD so I could upload them painfully slowly thru the dialup. I was so excited to finally get my first digital camera in 2002!
The Sew4Kids4Fun list spun off several special interest lists, and I joined almost all of them. Then I found yahoo groups and a whole other world of lists. I was getting hundreds of emails a day and could not keep up!
Then people started talking about blogs. I hopped on the blogwagon too. I'm finding that I compose way more blog entries in my head than I actually ever get to post, and I am sorry for that, dear readers, because some of them are pretty good (ha ha!)!
Then people started talking about podcasts, but we were still on dialup so downloading them was next to impossible. It didn't take long to convince DH to make the switch to cable, despite the added cost. Next thing I did was to get DH a new iPod for Father's Day, so he could hand me down his older one and I was hooked on podcasts! I quickly filled the little ipod mini up, and started campaigning for a new ipod with enough memory for all my podcasts and also TV episodes! Remember, I'm a Lost junkie! That happened last fall, when we cashed in a big jar of change we'd been saving for many many years and I got my ipod classic!
At some point I heard on the knitting podcasts about Ravelry, the online knitting (and crocheting) community, so of course I jumped on that bandwagon too! I'm busknitter over there!
DS joined an online community too, Webkinz, so I had to get my own furry friends and join that too so I could see what the Webkinz craze was all about.
Now there's Facebook. I just can't keep up! I have a wall people write on, I've been poked, and I've gotten in touch with some dear friends from high school that I had lost touch with over the years. That's cool.
And I don't even dare explore what Twitter is! Where are we going next??????

A Good Day to Be a Knitter!

I know this is mainly a sewing blog (or, at least it's supposed to be), but knitting is what I do outside of my sewing room! Today I am a knitter, and in knitter paradise! A new LYS (local yarn shop) has opened near me! Crazy for Ewe, which has had a very nice shop in Leonardtown, has opened in LaPlata! The new store is in a quaint little house in a section that was pretty much demolished by the tornado in 2002. LaPlata has experienced quite a comeback, with various offices, restaurants, and shops open in the area of the new town hall. Crazy for You is actually about 2 blocks from Material Girls quilt shop (see, still sewing related!). Of course I had to check it out and buy something to celebrate, so some nice sock yarn and some recycled sari silk came home with me!
Then, when I got home my invitation to Ravelry was in my inbox! Ravelry is an online knitting community that is still in beta testing, so you have to put your name on the waiting list to be added as a tester. I got on the waiting list on Nov 12 and was #56 thousand something to sign on, with 11,066 on the waiting list ahead of me. I'd been (in)patiently waiting since then, checking a couple times a day to see where I was. They were adding about 700 users per day, and today was my day! My Ravelry name is busknitter. So far I've just set up my profile. Hopefully tomorrow I can add pictures and stuff!