The forums include a bunch of little useful tools and that are easy to miss if you aren’t looking for them. Here are a few things that you might not have noticed.

Topic totals

At the top of every thread, right below the title, is a summary line with a few different totals. Most of them are linked and you can click to dig into the details.

• The number of images in the thread. Tap this to view all of the posts that include images.
• The number of patterns that were linked in the thread. This brings you to the pattern search page and filters for the patterns that were discussed.
• The same as above, but projects instead of patterns
• Voices: this links to a page that shows the top posters in the thread, along with any moderators that have participated

Search inside a topic

At the top of each page of posts, above the first post, is a row of links. The search this topic link will open up a search box that you can use to either search for text in posts OR search for a particular person’s posts by putting in their username. Typing in your own name here can be a handy way to look at your own posts in a thread.

Search everywhere

There is a small search box in the top right of the main forums tab. If you are looking for something that you know has been mentioned somewhere, use the “All forums” option to search every forum/group on Ravelry. If you are looking for a particular phrase, put it in quotes. For example: “crazy goat help”.

Topic tools

The green bar that sticks to the bottom of every thread includes a button that is labeled “Tools: watch, ignore..”. Hiding in here is a useful pair of links: one that will bring you to the very first post, and one that will send you back to the last post that you read. If you find yourself catching up on an old thread, this gives you a way to jump to the beginning and then return to where you left off.

We recently added some things to the “pattern ideas” tab on yarn pages.

The pattern ideas section gives you a way to look through patterns that other people have paired with a yarn. Next to each pattern you’ll see 4 example projects that used that specific yarn and you can click to see the rest.

Some of the new additions: you can filter by craft or category, enter a range of skeins that will be matched with each pattern’s yarn requirements, and click over to the advanced pattern search. You’ll also see more information about yarn requirements – both the amount that the pattern calls for and the amount typically used by other Ravelers.

Finally, patterns that are both listed in both the ideas and your favorites or queue will appear at the very top so that you do not miss them.

If you have any suggestions for improving pattern ideas even more, we’d love to hear them!

This is a sweet time of year on Ravelry, when we see tons of photos of loved ones wearing things that were made especially for them. Here are a few of the many, many projects that were finished in December.

Maschenbaby’s Anna (made for her sister), andreafromtoronto’s ~ Son its cold outside ! ~ (made for her son) and VirginijaSan’s Žiemos Uogos // Winter Berries (made for her daughter)

mng’s 37 Years (made for her friend), samovaren’s Gefjun til kjæresten (made for her boyfriend) and Moonstruckmermaid’s ♥ Mr. M. ♥ (made for Mr. Moonstruck)

KellyInTexas’ Fennel (made for her husband), RoseHA’s Twin’s Favourite Things (made for her brother) and Kazyuk’s Cassavetes (made for her husband)

Jess’ first comment on seeing this post: Wow. How do you get on these people’s gift lists?

We finally have a bunch of new merch in the Ravelry mini-mart!

The sad news: one of our new designs is this sheep breed art that we created for wool and sheep lovers everywhere. We printed it on 3 styles of shirts and 2 bags, and we printed lots of them so that everyone would be able to get one. THERE IS A MISTAKE.

Yep. The Romeldale sheep is missing an L.

You can take home one of our sheep mistakes at a 40% discount. We’re selling nice tees for $12, great quality totes for $12, and large zippered canvas pouches for $9.

Sheep mistakes:

For shirts, we have Women’s Crew Neck from S to 2XL (they run small), Women’s V Neck from L to 3XL, and Unisex (not shown) from S to 2XL.

We also have a canvas tote and a zippered canvas pouch:

More new stuff, sans mistakes

Ravelry Alphabet Tote, a new design by Eloise Narrigan (Eloise is worksweet on Ravelry)

Yarnimal kids shirts. We printed this yarn bowl animal art by verabee on one-pieces and kids shirts in sizes 2 up to 12.

And finally, a Ravelry needle & hook tool that was custom made for us by Raveler katrinkles. You can see her other work at https://www.etsy.com/shop/katrinkles.

Some projects like to take their time. They’ll sit in your queue waiting for the right yarn or the right day, then they don’t cooperate or something else comes along and they’ll be sent off to wait in a basket or bag. These projects were all 2 or 3 years in the making but now they are finally done (woohoo!) and they look SO GOOD! Congratulations, everyone.

CLEOCMC’s Vivien: queued in 2013, started in April 2014, and finished in October.

hiro25neko’s Noro Melody Skirt: queued in 2012, started this May, and finished in October.

clairesoleil’s Couronne. Queued in 2013, started this April, and finished last month.

mrspremise’s Laura Shawl. Queued in 2013, started this March, and finished in October.

taniaho’s Puffin. Queued in 2012, started 1 year ago, and finished in October.

dimples74’s Gilded Grace. Queued in 2013, started this July, and finished last week.

motorharp’s Blue sweater. Queued in 2012, started this March, and finished last month.

Cathri’s Splashes. Queued in 2013, started in February 2014, and finished last week.

hurdygurdygirl’s Lovage . Queued in 2012, started this January, and finished last month.

It’s October and many of us see mitten weather in our future. The Ravelers featured below all came up with their projects by making modifications to mitten patterns.

Above: coffeebug’s Wanderwellen 4ply take 2, TiiQ’s Newgrange Socks, and lacesockslupins’ Latvian maximitten.

annanann’s Loose me not mittens, hellaorange’s Herbstliche Armstulpen, and Ribbels’ Shetland Chullo.

Imkehim’s In Persuit of Edelweiß, bcat75’s Endpaper gloves, and Venke’s Finnish Gloves.

In your project notes, you’ll find a new button that you can use to quickly add an entry with a heading. You’ll see a few options for customizing the heading and once you’ve created entries, you can tap one to edit instead of editing your entire project.

If you like to add updates to your project notes as you work, I hope that this saves you some time!

This is just a shortcut that updates the text in your notes. If you’d like add headings to existing notes, you can do that. Try adding an entry and then edit and look at your notes – you’ll see how it all works.

Improving yarn search features has been on our minds a lot lately. We’d love it if you could search for specific breeds, sources and locations, attributes like “gradient”, things like that.

Anyway, I was poking at the yarn search today and I noticed something that I had forgotten about. Yarn spinners and dyers can link their Ravelry profiles to their yarn pages and if you have a location set in your Ravelry profile, you can search for yarnies (spinners and dyers) that are creating yarns near you. The search filter is at the bottom of the yarn search and it’s called “yarnie within”.

Try it out: within 30 miles, within 60 miles.

Anyone who links their yarns to their Ravelry profile page will show up so you might see large yarn brands in there too.

This week is brought to you by a suggestion from juliafc. It’s a little different than usual because the projects shown are not all new projects.

Most Ravelry pattern pages include photos of FOs that were shared by knitters and crocheters. I looked for Ravelers that have had their finished objects featured by an unusually large number of different designers over the years. A sampling of their beautiful projects and photographs are below and you can click through to their project notebooks for many more.

clairedupont from Amiens, France: Forest Cardigan, Couleurs Caraïbes . Afmaeli, Kelpie and Exploration Station.

chitweed from Delaware: Patty Cake Cardi, Corner Start Baby Afghan, Sunday Shawl for Sis and W e d d i n g P r e s e n t .

ittybitty from Jura, Switzerland: spring blossom, winter forest, looking for the summer (her own design), and (big) sister.

roko from Tokyo, Japan: For You Blue, Crochet Bag, Hitofude Bolero (her own design) and Sheep

If you post on Rav with a phone or tablet, you may have noticed that things didn’t go so well when trying to include emoji in your text. Well, we fixed that.

Emoji now work in the forums and in private messages. If you insert them anywhere else, you’ll see the name of the symbol instead of an image.

but how?

• On a phone or tablet: you have an emoji keyboard on there somewhere. It’s easy to use once you find it.
• On a Mac: hit ⌘-control-space to bring up the emoji selector.
• Elsewhere: find and search codes at http://emoji.codes and type the code that you want (like :sheep:) into a post or message.

Enjoy!