Nobody flew fancy kites a few decades ago. But it didn't matter. When my dad fitted the balsa ribs onto the yellow paper store-bought kite, spring arrived just as surely then as it does now.

I still hear the rip-rip-rip of a thin, old bedsheet being torn into strips to be tied onto the kite's tail. I feel the tug on the string as the season's last cool gusts yank the kite up, up, up toward the clouds — and the warmth of my dad standing behind me, wanting to hold the kite line himself, instead ripping a slot in a tiny piece of paper he puts on the line, a note telling the kite hello. The note disappears up the line, supposedly carried by the wind; and when we reel in the kite, the note is gone — cast off, we think, by a kite too happy flying to concern itself with us on Earth.

Some people still send notes up their kites' lines. You'd be hard-pressed to find those notes addressed to paper kites. Go to Ocean Shores, Grays Harbor County, Fort Worden State Park near Port Townsend, Whidbey Island or Long Beach — home of the World Kite Museum and Hall of Fame — and you'll see fabric flying in all shapes and colors.

I cheat. My 6-foot dolphin-shaped kite came from a toy store. It's pretty in blue, but it's impersonal. I'd like to have a kite that came from my sewing machine — a kite that's more "me." A kite resembling a flock of pink flamingoes.

How to start? The Web makes it a breeze to learn about planning and building an original kite creation.

The challenge: Building a totally cool kite that won't just sit around looking pretty.

Web site: www.kitebuilder.com; Kite Studio, Wescosville, Pa.

Purpose: Community and education to get kite builders off the ground.

The setup: The black background on the home page nicely sets off the colorful kites pictured there. We see a whimsical horned monster, a square Matisse knockoff, serious eagle heads and Wile E. Coyote from the "Roadrunner" cartoons — all doable and flyable for ordinary earthlings like us. Click to enter the rest of the site.

Ease of navigation: Links are clearly marked along the left-hand side. These include links to a kiters newsgroup and the American Kitefliers Association.

Graphics-light pages load quickly. Look for lots of links to interior pages and to other Web sites.

What you'll find: Plans, parts, flight tips, calendar and results of kite competitions, profiles of kite builders, links to suppliers, community discussion board.

A sample: "Since I went to the trouble of creating this, I deserve and demand not only pictures of the completed kite, but also a critique of the instructions and a list of any changes you made, in return for which you will also be included in an addendum of this article; and you are entitled to free consulting by me to solve any problems during construction." — Tony Ferrel on his design "Grandson of Woodstock."

Gosh, who could ask for more — except a guarantee that it will fly?

The best part: The site links to about 195 kite plans. They're grouped under headings, such as "Multi Line Power," "Multi Line Sport," "Rokkaku" and "Simple Kites." Click on the heading names for descriptions of the kite groups. Then click on the name of a kite you'd like to see, and you'll be taken to a drawing that includes dimensions (some of them in metric measure only); a list of materials and how-to-build instructions.

Some links include a history of the kite design; for example, the Baden-Powell Manlifter was designed in 1895 to carry people or cargo.

Thumbs-down: Some of the links are dead — we'll never know how the "Suruga" designs look.

Also, flight and kite-engineering information requires a bit of hunting under "Tech Sheets." The curious also can request help on the site's bulletin-board service.

Surprise: There's an opportunity for visitors to request information, but under "What Will You Find Here?" the Webmaster requests information from visitors. "Did you build one of the kites in the plans section? How did it work out? Did it fly? Do you have a picture? What drives your passion for kite building? What knowledge can you share?"

We love the invitation to unfurl ideas.

Related sites

• www.kitefart.com/nckc; Northern California Kite Club. Excuse the URL; the club flies seriously — and regularly. The remarkable parts of the page are the long calendar of kiting events and the San Francisco weather report, including current wind direction and speed.

• www.lawrence.org/edlinkskites/kites.htm; Lawrence, N.Y., Public Schools kite page. Links to sites of interest to kids in windy places around the world.

Sites include plans, tricks, history, flight physics and photos galore. Click the link to National Kite Month for unusual information, such as Federal Aviation Administration kite rules, why there's wind and ways to use kites in classroom teaching.

Home on the Web appears the first Saturday of the month in digs. The e-mail address is homeontheweb@seattletimes.com