Saturday, February 11, 2012

Ravelry is Forever? Or Maybe Not...

I noticed one of my Ravelry friends was missing this morning. It's not that I regularly check on these things. I am not much of a forum poster or thread follower; in the almost 4 years I have been a Raveler, I have made posts to the forums 35 times.

Still, this knitter was busy. She was a fairisle MACHINE, cranking out numerous complicated fairisles a year, with some fancy cabled sweaters for added spice. She wasn't a good knitter, she was a GREAT knitter. I was a big fan of her work. Then she had a sudden and quite unexpected medical issue and she could no longer knit. I can't imagine that. It would be awful.

She bought herself a circular sock machine, and started using that. She condensed and archived a lot of her fairisle projects on her Rav page, and started downsizing her stash. Yikes. Still, when she posted, she sounded positive, and she had her previous projects as a body of work. It sounded like a hopeful new chapter.

I hadn't been by her page in months, so I randomly thought I would cruise by her page this morning to see what she was doing. Gone. Nothing. There is what looks to be a new Raveler with her username. Her forum posts (and she had lots) are all deleted. She has been erased from Ravelry. Given her circumstances, I can understand, I think (assuming she erased herself). It might have been hard being an Olympic level knitter and then not be able to continue with the craft she obviously loved. Still, she removed what I thought was an impressive legacy of knitwork. I can't imagine how much psychological pain she might be in that would prompt her to remove her projects, which were impressive and well worth the bragging rights. What scares me for her, is maybe she wasn't recovering. Or was getting worse.

I never really knew her or even met her, but her online voice was fun. I enjoyed periodically seeing what she was up to. Now she has been neatly excised, although there are holes left in the forum threads where people use her username like they were addressing her in her now deleted posts, or refer to her. That username is now a stranger's name. I find myself made sad and a little disturbed by her disappearance. I hope she is OK. I send this thought to the Universe: I wish her well, and hope things work out for my unseen online friend.

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