Ravelry is a fabulous source of free and for-sale crochet and knit patterns.

Ravelry – My Crochet Library

But did you know, it is also a community – with Groups, Swaps, Forums, CAL (crochet-alongs) and KAL (knit-alongs).

I love the environment and friendly atmosphere – and that it is all about yarn.

Just like with Pinterest, I can lose myself for long-periods of time (when the littles are sleeping that is!) and explore new ideas and search for new patterns to try, but I can also contact and interact with others who share the same passions.

You can queue patterns to work on, complete project pages, leave feedback and reviews on patterns you have hooked – and contact the Designers directly via the Ravelry messaging system.

You can also store patterns in your Ravelry ‘library’ to go back to later and as you complete patterns you can add them to your Projects folder – with ratings, notes, pictures and even the yarn and hook you used.

If you are on Ravelry and would like to connect, my username is RhonddaM  – feel free to send me a friend request.

Some of the Groups I participate (or participated) in are:

KRW Knitwear Studio Fans – where I participate in the Stitch of the Month CAL

Overlay Mandala CAL 2013 – where I participated in the CAL to make this mandala

and there are so many others – so much to explore –

I will leave you with a link to one of the free patterns available from Vanja’s blog, (Amigurumi BB’s)

This is Ella the Elephant and her Boyfriend:

Photo Credit: Vanja Grundmann (Amigurumi BB’s)

I’m particularly fond of Vanja’s patterns – I’ve already hooked one and I will blog about it tomorrow.