Gina L.

Ravelry has an amazing database of crochet (and knitting) patterns, many of which are free.

Some patterns are political or otherwise likely to offend; these are marked as "mature content" and you can choose not to see them.

Signing up is free and you can upload as many images to your project and stash pages as you like. Keeping up to date notes of your projects is really handy in case you want to remake a pattern and you can't remember how you altered it, or you've got several Works In Progress and you can't remember what size hook you used in one of them! You can also look at other people's pages and see what that sweater looks like made by other crafters on all sizes and shapes of bodies.

If you want to venture into the forums, and if you want to upload images to the forums, and if they're not the images from your project or stash pages, then there is a small annual fee of $5.

The "Big Six" main forums are strictly moderated and no thread drift is allowed. They're really helpful if you want to know about a particular yarn, pattern or technique.

There are other forums based on groups, and the Crochet Shoulder Wrappers group is particularly good, well-regulated, knowledgeable and helpful. They have three Crochet-A-Longs a month: one free pattern, one paid, and one that can be free or paid that the members have voted for. CALs never really end so you can always get help or advice on any of those patterns quite easily.

Some forums focus on chat or on politics. If you don't want drama you can avoid those.

All in all a wonderful site. As with any internet site there can occasionally be drama but it really is very easy to avoid it.