6.10.2009

"Ukelists" unite on Ravelry

At the store, I hear of people who do get some time to browse on Ravelry for fun. I get to do it as part of my job (how lucky is that?) and am here to share some discoveries with those of you who might just get a few minutes to check out your own site and perhaps a favourite group or two, or those of you who haven't discovered that insanely gigantic community of committed knitting crafters that meets regularly on line.
So in my browse today, I was going through the new groups that have been formed recently and noticed that number 17 down the list was called Ukulele and Ukulele Stringers! and featured this lovely young Hawaiian lady as their mascot (I wonder if she was squished on purpose to make her have more realistic build than we usually see on hula dancers?)

When I went into this group I discovered some interesting things:

-it was only formed 2 days ago and already there are 16 other groups that have been formed since it became part of the Ravelry world.

-in 2 days, 15 people have found it and have signed up as members from the US and the UK. (Does that mean that only people from countries that begin with U are interested in the ukulele?)

-8 people have posted

-from this thread, I was lead to a site http://rockthatuke.com/ that appears to be a documentary subtitled "a peek at human nature through a very tiny sound hole" and has an endorsement from film industry big gun: Ethan Coen, Academy Award-winning writer, director and producer.

-there is a CD of Beatles Music on the ukulele.


In the interest of actually getting something else done today, I finally closed down the Ravelry site that originally led me on this path of ukulele discovery but was amazed to realize that this tiny segment of the of the wider population of knitters has found each other and, for some of them, may have rekindled another creative interest.
I keep hearing about how the Internet is isolating us more and more, but I have to say that I just don't get that.
Maybe I'm just a bit too eclectic in my tastes, but I love to stumble on such fun things as ukulele knitters and learn about what they find important.