Best of Everything: Ten Great Knitting Websites

To celebrate the Knitting Institute's National Knitting Week next week (12-19 October) and the fact that we have some great knitting teachers on School of Everything, I've been looking around at what's available online for knitters. So here's our pick of 10 websites for all things knitting.

10 Great Knitting Websites

1) Ravelry

US-based Ravelry comes top of the list, because it's one of the oldest and almost certainly the largest knitting and crochet community (nearly 200,000 users - wow). Ravelry's members can use the site to organise projects, show off work, share ideas, knitting patterns and techniques, find new designs and yarns and much more. They're trying to grow slowly so the site doesn't get overstrained, so there's a waiting list to join. But if you sign up to the list, they currently say they'll let you in in just a few days.

2) Stitch N Bitch

Stitch N Bitch comes second, as we love that it's less about online interaction than meeting up. There are Stitch N Bitch groups all over the place - just look up in the directory to find your nearest source of knitters. If you can't find a group, there are tips for starting your own group.

3) British Hand Knitting Association

The British Hand Knitting Association is a huge resource listing knitting news, free knitting patterns, knitting groups by city/area, knitting artists, competitions, picture galleries and tons of other resources. A great way to find a UK introduction to communities around knitting.

4) Prick Your Finger

Disclosure: Prick Your Finger is just around the corner from Everything HQ, and sometimes we come across Rachel sitting outside spinning in the street on our way to lunch. More disclosure: Prick Your Finger boasts classes by Aneeta Patel of Knitting SOS, a long-standing friend of Everything who taught Team Everything how to knit back in January. But that's only a tiny bias - it's a beautiful site, and the Prick Your Finger blog has great links and inspiration for the wild and inventive world of art, fashion and activist knitting.

5) The Yarn Harlot

Canadian-born Stephanie Pearl McPhee's award-winning site The Yarn Harlot is possibly the best-read knitting blog in the world, according to Katy at Knitting magazine. And that's saying something. Knitting conferences, patterns, musings on life, love and wool - there's masses here, going back years, in an informal but inspiring style.

6) MicroRevolt

Started by knitter Cat Mazza in 2003, MicroRevolt promotes knitting as a way of tackling sweatshop exploitation. An amazing example of how people are using crafts to tackle social issues. And there's also a super-cool app that lets you convert corporate logos into patterns suitable for any knitting or needlepoint project.

7) Free Knitting and Crochet Patterns on Flickr

We're big Flickr fans at Everything HQ, so I've included the Flickr Free Knitting and Crochet Patterns pool. People upload pictures of great things they've created, and add links to the pattern so you can make it yourself. From wooolly toy kittens to evil ninja minions to scarves, socks and everything else, you can start with the picture and get knitting from there. Though it's less a single site than a space where lots of people collaborate, I love that it's such a creative use of photo sharing.

8) Free Patterns

The best knitting pattern site I found was Free Patterns. Though more dedicated knitters might want to browse a range of blogs and spaces for inspiration, Free Patterns has over 2,900 patterns available for download, so it's a great place to start. You need to register to download patterns but it's regularly updated and there's a list of the most popular patterns.

9) Knitting Forums

The liveliest dedicated knitting forum I found was Knitting Forums. Run by Angel Yarns, it's the UK's favourite knitting forum with discussion across knitting and other wool-based crafts.

10) Knitting on Livejournal

Tenth place was a tie between two Livejournal knitting communities. Knitting is a fairly mainstream knitting community with over 8,000 members, while Punk Knitters is an alternative knitting community with over 4,000 members.

Picking these sites was a daunting task, and ten sites is far too few for such a huge subject. So please tell me, knitters: what do you think? Have I missed anything?

Click here to browse School of Everything for a knitting or craft teacher near you.