Tag Archives: Knitting

So I’ve hardly had any time to knit at all lately, and when I do, it’s on a sooper sekrit knitting project that I just can’t share. But I’ll be wrapping that up soon which leads me to trolling for my next project. I saw so many lovely yarns and projects at TNNA that I feel very inspired to knit. Sometimes the choices are absolutely overwhelming!

When I’m overwhelmed by choices, I love to take advantage of Ravelry’s search features. If you haven’t used the advanced search feature on Ravelry, you’re missing out. I know not everyone is as much of a Rav-a-holic as I am, so I’m going to give you a little tour of the features while I look for my next project.

I’ve got a baby sweater in mind to be made with DK weight yarn which I have in two different colors: 360 yards green, 180 yards purple. Let’s see what I can come up with in the search.

From the pattern tab, click on “Pattern Browser & Advanced Search”

We’ll be using a lot of the filters on the left for this search. (Yours may be in a different order, as they move around based on when you use them.)

First, I definitely only want patterns that have a picture and are knit, so I’ll select those options under “Has photo” and “Craft.” You’ll see those options come up underneath the search bar.

Next I go to “category” and select Clothing -> Sweater -> All Sweaters. I don’t know if I want a pullover or a cardigan, yet!

And then I move down to “Gender / Age / Size / Fit” and select Age or Size -> Baby. There are still almost 7,000 matches! Time to keep narrowing.

I scroll down to “weight” and select DK (2,007 – somehow that seems much more reasonable!) and then set the max yardage as 540 (3 balls of yarn at 180 yards each). I don’t think I want to use up all three balls, but I know that I can’t go beyond that and it culls almost 1,000 patterns out!

I also decided to see what’s in my favorites – only 6 patterns! (If you don’t use favorites or your queue, then you need to check it out!)

Two of those patterns were clearly patterns that I was thinking of knitting for myself. The Rope-Edged Baby Pullover I favorited because I was interested in the cabled edge for something else I was making. I’ve loved Oriental Lily for forever! And Helena is cute, but not what I have in mind. Autumn Leaves, however, is right up there as a possibility, although I think I would want to make it in one color. I’m going to save it to compare. There’s a hand way to do that in Rav. Underneath the picture is a down arrow and a menu pops up. I select “Remember and Compare” for later.

I’m going to get rid of my favorites so I can see what else comes up. This is easy to do by selecting the “clear” button next to “my notebook: faved.” Because I have two color yarns, I thought I’d look to see what might use them both. Under Attributes, I select colorwork -> stranded. Because stripes are cool too, at the bottom of the Attribute box, I select “Or” and then back up to colorwork -> stripes.

But there are still over a hundred matches, so let’s see if I can narrow it down even further. Just for fun, I went to the advanced dropdown in Attributes. Now I can search multiple things. So I’ll look for either a colorwork or stranded sweater that is seamless but not knit bottom up.

I’ve selected a few sweaters. I’m going to compare them. At the bottom right-hand corner of the screen there’s a little box with a star. When I click on it, the five patterns that I wanted to take a closer look up appear.

Now I’ll check those out individually. You can see that if I wanted to search further within the compared sweaters I could! All my search requirements were cleared, so if I decide that I really only want cardigans and not pullovers, I can search that. And of course, I could start over with a completely new set of search criteria! What will I decide? I don’t even know yet!

Do you have any questions about Ravelry pattern searches? Any brilliant sweater ideas?

The past two weeks have been a complete whirlwind for me and Lauria. I’ll recap: First I drove from Texas to Boston for a five day photo shoot. Then Lauria drove with me to Columbus for the TNNA Summer trade show. The show is always a whole lot of work, but it’s also the only chance that most yarn distributors, creative directors, designers and shop owners have a chance to meet and talk about business.

It is always such a treat to catch up with the shop owners from around the country. I love hearing what people are doing with our yarns, which colors are most popular, etc. And can I just say that the shop owners who carry JMF yarns are just amazingly lovely people?

After the trade show floor closes, the KFI team meet for drinks at the hotel bar and then head out to epic, hours-long dinners, usually with clients. The dinners are fun but also incredibly tiring (and yes, I am aware that is a First World Problem) and we rarely get back to our hotel rooms before midnight.

Then we do it again. And again. And again. So that by the time the show wraps up on Monday, I am essentially a zombie wearing hand knits.

I cannot write about TNNA without mentioning my dear friend Debbie Bliss. Debbie is one of those rare celebrities who is exactly the person you hope she will be. She kind, and generous and incredibly fun. I’m going to be seeing her in London in a couple of weeks, which makes me so happy!

I am taking a couple of days to recuperate before heading to Scotland on Saturday. My friend Kris has told me in no uncertain terms that my getting sick before we leave is unacceptable, so she has me under house-arrest until we leave for the airport.

More news soon, including some picture of the flock and the dogs!