Unraveled

It’s warming up here in the US, which means that festival season is here! This summer, we’ll be traveling quite a bit, and it all begins this weekend with Maryland Sheep and Wool!

We have our official MDSW Meetup times and locations! On Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3, we are meeting in the Rabbit Buildling from 12:00 – 1:00 pm. Click on the dates to check out their event pages right here on Ravelry, so that you can RSVP!

You can check out the location of the Rabbit Building on the Fairgrounds Map page of the MDSW site; here is a little closeup:

If you haven’t yet, go ahead and mark that you were attending MDSW on its own Ravelry Events page! :)

The Maryland Sheep and Wool volunteers are always so helpful in finding a space that is accessible to all, available for use, and large enough to fit a whole bunch of Ravelry members and curious Ravelers-to-be in between their other scheduled events. We’re so pleased to be able to have a good spot for our meetup! Last year, on Saturday, we were pretty crowded (heh) when trying to fit everyone inside the Rabbit Building, but there is a lot of space on the lawns all around it so we’re able to spread out, which is great.

We’ll have buttons to hand out at the scheduled meetups and sharpies so that you can write your usernames on them. We really can’t wait to meet everyone and say hello!

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Ravelry has been around for nearly 2 years now but the idea was actually dreamed up on April 11th, 2005. You can see the original baby of an idea over on Jess’ blog.

Ravelers have since dubbed April 11th “Bobmas” which means that today is Bobmas Eve. Last year, yarn shops and knitting and crochet groups got together and celebrated with yarn, cupcakes, bobtinis (really!), pints, and um… silly hats?

This time we put together a short video message for everyone. It’s a little hello from the 4 of us (+ dogs) along with some photos from some meetups and events from the last year. Thank you to redplaid Kellie and The Superior Crafters of the North for giving us us the idea!

Thank you all so much for spending time with us and Ravelry this year!

— Casey, Jess, Mary-Heather, Erica and Bob

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We are overwhelmed with the amazing field of candidates we received in response to our job listing – nearly 1500 applications in all. To say we were blown away by the response would be an understatement! We have an amazing field of applicants to review this week. With every email we read, we are more and more impressed with the talent and skills of the applicants, and passion that shines through in the letters, videos, blog posts, and slideshow presentations that have been submitted! To everyone who applied: thank you so much!

We want to remind everyone that the nominations for the Bobbys are going to end on March 31! If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to check out the categories and nominate some of your favorite Ravelry posts, patterns, projects, stashes, and more! You can find more information in our previous blog post about the nominations process. Soon, the Bobbys will be open for voting!

Nominate here!

(Comments…)

Hi Ravelry! Erica the Email Fairy is moving on, and Ravelry is looking for a new team member! This is a part-time (~20 hours per week), work-at-home position with flexible hours, and a definite possibility of growth with the company over time. :) We are looking for someone tech-savvy, friendly, and positive who is very familiar with the Ravelry site and community.

essential responsibilities include:

– Provide the first line of helpful support to all emails coming in via our contact-us page, the shopping@ravelry.com, and the advertising@ravelry.com email addresses (and alerting the rest of the staff to potentially important issues that come in). Topics in these emails can cover anything under the sun – designer/yarnie issues, confidential forum issues, happy people, Ravelry mini-mart questions, advertiser help, and more!

– Hook up designers, yarnies, and design teams with their Ravelry profiles and answering basic questions or directing to helpful on-Ravelry resources as needed.

– Assist users with Ravelry invitation issues.

– Provide help as needed on the Ravelry “work” forums: For the Love of Ravelry, Help!, Ravelry Shopkeepers, Ravelry Editors, Advertisers’ Caboodle.

– Assist Jess and Mary-Heather with ad approvals (image feedback, checking groups for competitors, etc.).

– Must be familiar with Ravelry’s site, vision, and tone!

– Must be able to stay motivated, level-headed, and work both independently as a self-starter on your own tasks, and as a part of our tightly-knit (har) team.

– Ownership of cute dog not required.

To apply for this position:

Please email jobs@ravelry.com with your resume and an email telling us more about your experience and why you are interested in the job. Please include your Ravelry username! We will need to receive it by Friday, March 27. You don’t need to write a formal cover letter… heck, you can make a video, upload it to the internet somewhere, and send us the link. :) Whatever works!

We do have some questions we would like you to answer:

1) Why do you want to work for Ravelry?
2) What qualities, technical experience (computer and crafty!) and skills could you bring to our little team?
3) If you were a yarn-producing fiber, what would you be and why?

Go Team Rav!

p.s. if you have questions about this position, please email jobs@ravelry.com. Thank you! :)

Updated Monday, March 23 – Frequently Asked Questions!

Can you apply for this position if you live outside of the United States?

– Sure! International applicants – please go ahead and apply, and thank you for your interest! We are checking out all the labor law and employment tax details we would need when it comes to hiring a non-US-based person, but we are open to the possibility! :)

How old do you have to be?

– You must be 18 years old to apply.

What do you mean by “tech-savvy?”

– You don’t need to be a computer programmer to apply by any means – Casey does all the code here. :) You should be very familiar with Ravelry and the way the site works; we will help get you up to speed, of course, but familiarity with The List, the Ravelry wiki, our Community Guidelines, and how to “work” the technical things on the site (uploading photos, linking blog posts, etc.) is important. You should be very internet-savvy in general. The customer support emails are handled through a web-based email system, and you will often be helping users with very limited computer experience with a very wide variety of tasks, so proficiency with basic computer tasks (in both Mac and PC operating systems) is needed.

Is this position paid?

– Yes! This position is paid an hourly wage and requires about 20 hours a week. Pay is competitive with customer service and administrative jobs in the Boston area.

(comments…)

Have you noticed something new in the Ravelry footer?

Bob’s little ears mean only one thing: nominations are open for this year’s Bobby Awards!

The Bobby Awards are the unofficial Ravelry awards, organized and run by the moderators and members of The Bobbys Group here on Ravelry! With categories chosen by the group and ranging from “Best Handspun” to “Funniest Single Forum Post” to “Best Disaster,” there is sure to be something on Ravelry you would like to nominate for a Bobby.

This year, Ravelry got involved with the nominations and Casey made a handy nominator – since the site has grown so much since last year’s Bobby Awards (which were huge!), we wanted to make things easier on the mods and be sure that every Raveler who wanted to participate and nominate something for the Bobbys would be able to do so.

You can check out the categories and their descriptions on the Bobbys nominations page. If there is a project, pattern, person, image, forum post, etc. that you would like to nominate for a given category, you can nominate it by pasting in the URL in the “link” field, making sure that the right category is selected in the green box, adding a comment if you wish, and clicking the nominate button.

If you happen to be looking at a page on Ravelry that has a Bobbys category and you’d like to nominate it, clicking on the Bobbys icon in the footer will take you to the nominations page with the link automagically filled in for you. You just have to be sure to select the appropriate category before you hit the “nominate” button!

Nominations are open until March 31… after that, the voting for the winners will begin! (We’ll have more info about that later.) There are even prizes for the winners! If you are interested in donating a prize, you can contact Jesh to let her know.

We’d like to give a huge thank-you to the moderators of The Bobbys group here – it’s a lot of fun for us to get involved with a big group project that is open to all Ravelry members. Thank you to Jesh, Kateyj, knit2gether, smittenknitten, telcontar, ThatOtherRedhead, and Veriton!

Have fun!

Comments?

We are still reeling from the fabulous weekend we had at the Valentine’s Day “Texas Loves Ravelry” party at The Knitting Nest in Austin (they have an online shop, too!). They gave us a warm Texas welcome and made us feel at home right away – Stacy, the owner of The Knitting Nest, wrote to the office of the Governor, and had us officially declared Honorary Texans, y’all!

Everywhere we looked around the shop, there were special, fun details for the Ravelry party. A banner made from a whimsical drawing of Bob and Hank, the shop dog at The Knitting Nest, drawn by none other than Franklin, was up on the wall for Ravelers to sign (and Jess and Casey to take back to Ravelry World Headquarters). Handknit and fulled stockings, needle-felted with our names and filled with chocolates and Valentines, hung below the banner. Project bags with the Bob & Hank banner were available, and there was even a gift basket filled with doggie treats and toys for Bob!

One of our favorite things to do is get out and meet Ravelers. We hung out at the shop all day, got to look at beautiful projects, connect faces to the avatars and projects, and talk in person with users we’ve known from the forums for months. Such a great time!

There were even sweet dogs at the party, to help keep us from missing Bob and Charlie too much! Sweet Hank, the cutest Westie on the planet, gave us lots of snuggles. Halfway through the day, a lovely Raveler walked into the shop carrying her Boston terrier girl! Jess made a beeline to the front door to give some ear scratchies.

Thank you so much to all the Texas Ravelers who came to say hello, and especially to the staff of The Knitting Nest – we had a great time, and we can’t wait to come back!

Thanks, Stephig, for the last photo of Team Rav! To check out more pictures from our weekend in Austin, you can view the Flickr sets in Jess‘ and Mary-Heather’s photostreams, or by searching Ravelry Weekend on Flickr!

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 Peanut butter + chocolate, wool + needles, coffee + cream and now? Ravelry + Squam.  Woohoo!

Come see us up in one of our favorite parts of the world, Squam Lake in New Hampshire.

One of my longtime blog friends, Elizabeth (of bluepoppy) has organized a incredible textile retreat running June 3-7, 2009.  Casey and I will be there and I seriously can’t wait to take some of these classes!  (Summer at Squam Lake pretty much sounds like heaven to me just now, with the snow coming down here in Boston!)

There will be a Ravelry event on Saturday night, June 6th (more details to follow)

Registration opened on the 2nd- so check it out!  18 knitting classes with simply fabulous teachers, gorgeous location, and yummy food!  To get a feel for what it’s all about, go here to the “raves” section and watch a slideshow.

Teacher descriptions here– lots of familiar faces!

We also have a Squam Art Workshops group set up here on Ravelry- come by and ask questions or you can email info AT squamartworkshops DOT com

[Update!] Elizabeth has provided 4 books for us to give away! So comment on this post and we will pull 4 winners! Deadline for submitting your comment is tomorrow, 2/5 at 5pm EST.

There are two books for the giveaway: Ordinary Sparkling Moments (ONE copy) and Roots and Recollections: A Century of Rockywold-Deephaven Camps (THREE copies).

Ordinary Sparkling Moments by Christine Mason Miller (www.christinemasonmiller.com) was launched at Squam Art Workshops in 2008. It is a beautiful book that explores the ways in which we can find and celebrate creative inspiration in our daily lives.

Roots and Recollections: A Century of Rockywold-Deephaven Camps by Megan Thorn recounts the extraordinary creation of the RDC camps that was founded in 1897 by two amazing visionaries: Alice Mabel Bacon and Mary Alice Armstrong. Published in 1997 to commemorate a century of stewardship and continued success, the book features stunning, archival photographs of the people, the distinctive architecture of the camps and above all the dramatic beauty of the Squam Lakes region. Naturally, the book is also replete with stories and anecdotes about this unique family camp that is steeped in rich tradition.

Comment!

This Week in Ravelry #48 is out!

This Week in Ravelry is a community published newspaper that is all about – you guessed it – Ravelry! If you haven’t yet read TWIR, you’re missing out on helpful news, tips and tricks, links to funny and useful posts from all over the site, and even our very own Auntie Bubbopants advice column. We are so grateful to all the group members and moderators (phoenix, timiat, bubbo, bunnysquirrel, cherryred8, everknowledge, Froddopsycho, lusciousluka, Poochita, ShannonAnn, and rewselene) for their hard work and dedication each week as they create each issue. Thank you so much! :)

If you’d like to contribute to TWIR (that would make you a TWIRP – This Week in Ravelry Person), check out the group! Everyone is welcome to join.

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Jess, Casey, and I are headed to Southern California next week, where it’s about 30 degrees warmer than both Boston and Albuquerque. Woohoo!

Our first stop is on January 15, at Unwind in Burbank, where we’ll be joining Beth and Amanda from Lorna’s Laces yarns, Kelly and Dawn from Namaste, and Laura Birek, the author of “Picture Perfect Knits,” for a yarn-filled evening! The evening will begin at 7:30, and advance reservations are required because space is limited. There is a $25.00 reservation fee that can be applied toward any purchases or special orders made at Unwind that evening. Unwind will also be collecting charity donations for SOVA, so if you are able, please bring a non-perishable food or personal hygiene item. Your donation will allow you to be entered into a drawing to win one of the fabulous prizes that are available… including some Ravelry goodies. You can reserve your space on the Unwind website!

After the party at Unwind, we’re headed to sunny San Diego for the TNNA Winter Trade Show. This is always a great place to connect with other fiber industry folks and find out all about the upcoming books, yarns, and fibers. We won’t have a booth because we like to roam the aisles seeing as much as we can and talking to as many people as possible. If you see us, please come up and say hello!

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We’re very lucky to have so many generous, talented, enthusiastic, funny,
and friendly people here on Ravelry.

Thank you all so much for spending time with us this year.

Enjoy your holidays!

Love,
Jess, Casey, Mary-Heather and Erica (and Bob too)

Comments: Ravelry blog | Jess’ Flickr