As the knitting season has been building we've been getting many people coming in to ask for specific patterns: hats in non-wool yarn, or a tunic in Mohair. While we have many books and individual patterns for you to browse, Ravelry continues to be a very efficient way of finding patterns for the yarns we carry. It tells you WHICH book or pattern to look for in the store - if it isn't available to print for free online.
Ravelry is a tool with a wide scope. It is a hub for knitters, crocheters, designers, and yarn companies to communicate and share information in an easily searchable way. You can find patterns and see images of what different people made along with their notes on the pattern and yarn. You can also use the forums to find discontinued yarn in specific dye lots, or just to ask for people's opinions on a particular product. You can join groups and communicate with like-minded crafters to share tips and ideas. If you think you'd like to give it a try for yourself, just read on and we'll tell you both how to sign up and how to browse for patterns.
If you do nothing else with the site, it is an amazing tool for finding patterns - many free - with advanced pattern search options that allow you to find patterns for specific things (hats, sweaters, socks), for specific kinds of yarn (DK, worsted, super bulky), and yarn yardage (perfect when you have a specific amount of stash you want to use), and that's just the basics of the advanced search. For Halloween, we did a search for 'Halloween' and specified that we only wanted patterns with pictures and patterns that were free. We found these patterns that you could still whip up this weekend and we have beautiful yarns that will work for all of them:
 Halloween Treat Bags © barbara143 |
 Halloween Wreath © Lion Brand Yarn |
 Candy Basket © DRG |
 Brain Monster costume hat |
To sign up, click on the Sign Up button and provide your e-mail address. For those of you weary about giving out your e-mail address, we Ravelers in the shop wanted to let you know that we've never had a problem with spam from this site!
After entering your e-mail address and clicking the "Send Sign Up Link" button, you'll get a screen like.
We got our e-mail in less than a minute.
Click on the link they provide and you'll be send to a page where you'll pick your username and password. After that, you'll be free to roam Ravelry and enjoy all of its features, including posting your own projects and making notes on the yarn and patterns you used to make them.
To search for specific patterns click on the Patterns tab, which is visible on every page in Ravelry.
On the patterns page you can type in the general kind of pattern you want and you'll get search results, but to get specific pattern ideas you'll want to click on the pattern browser & advanced search link.
On the next page you'll see a column of options on the left-hand side of the screen. By checking items you limit the results that appear in the screen to patterns that fulfill the criteria you checked. You only have to check off criteria that matters to you. You do not need to check an item in every box if you don't care about it - like if you didn't care what fiber content of yarn you used for a particular sweater pattern, or if you didn't care what kind of pattern results you got for a particular length of a specific kind of yarn.
The criteria you can select for include:
So, go check it out and have some fun!
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