Unraveled

One of the things I love about crafting is that there is always something new to learn. Cables seemed so mysterious until I tried them and realized you’re just switching the order of the stitches. Perfect fair isle floats sound so intimidating but just take practice. I’m sure that hand dyeing is equally straight forward when you attempt it, but as I have yet to try it I still view it as a form of magic – creating potions and changing elements. Today’s Eye Candy celebrates recently completed projects from yarn the Raveler dyed themselves.

First up, these Ravelers went bright and colorful! From left to right: lacesheknits’ Tidal Shoals Hooked (check out her project notes to see how carefully planned this project was!), havatrump’s April Leaves (this was dyed in the wool, then spun, then knit!), and Yachunne’s Stinos Sock-Blanc Farbverlauf.

These low volume projects show how gorgeous subtle color schemes can be. From left: mloomco’s WP5: Dyed & Striped Napkins, Louiseulf’s Marbled, and beckymcd5’s more cotton slub/linen dish towels .

Finally, this last trio of projects features yarn dyed with natural dyestuffs – plants and insects! From left: Saz’ Ornäs Hat, philda’s Noordwijk (in den achtziger Jahren), and elle-melle’s stril med stril.

I hope you enjoyed these fantastic projects! I found them by searching project notes and tags, filling out that info is a great way for your projects to be more visible in search results. Here’s an example of a project search for the tag handdyyed sorted by recently updated.

After 9 years of operation, Ravelry is filled with information including over 14 million projects and more than 12 million stash entries. How do you catalog, sort through, and narrow down that volume of data? One great tool for that is tags. Today I’m going to show you how to tag a project or stash entry in your notebook and talk about why you might do so.

How to Tag

You’ll find the box to add tags on the page where you edit a notebook item. On a project or stash page there are two ways to enter tags in the field.

1. You can simply start typing in the field. Tags are all one word long, we use a space key to tell tags apart. So “top down” would become two different tags – top and down. The most popular convention is to smush all the words together, like “topdown”
2. The other way is to use the tagging tool, which you bring up by clicking the pink tag icon

The tagging tool gives you a larger text field to type in, as well as offering suggestions and common tags. You can add any of the offered tags by clicking on them once (and clicking on them again to remove them).

Why to Tag

Now that you know how to tag your items, let’s talk about why you would. One reason is for your own organization. You can do an advanced search by tag, so you could enter tags and then find all the scarves you’ve made for your mom or all your stashed yarns that were gifts.

Another reason you might want to tag is to participate in an event on Ravelry. A big one coming up is the Ravellenic Games, where Ravtheletes knit, crochet, spin, etc along with the Olympic Games in Rio. Tagging is how you enter your work and if you join the group you get special tagging tools!

Check out the instructions in the group on how to tag your projects to officially enroll them if you want to join the fun! And if you have any questions about the event, the official Ravellenic Games group is the place to ask – it’s run by a great bunch of volunteers who are happy to help!

I hope you enjoyed this overview of tagging items in your notebook! Enjoy joining in some organized fun, or just having a more orderly notebook.

I don’t have much of a green thumb, so it seems amazing to me that so many people can combine seeds and dirt and water into fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees, and all the wonderful things that grow in our gardens. Today’s eye candy celebrates that skill with recently finished garden-related FOs.

First up, some accessories for your plants. Aleknit’s Hanging Air Plant Display, mandamom62’s Terrarium Hanger, and Pinneguri’s Blomsterhenger.

Next, some more literal plant-inspired FOs. Penniah1792’s Canada Day Shawl, broknmachin14’s Mom’s Cactus Garden, and rin2’s flower motif coasters.

Finally, some pretty food! IfAsIf’s More Fruit Coasters, muumi’s Heirloom Strawberry, and wonderfallz’s Blue Cabbage.

I hope you’re seeing natural beauties at home – either in your own garden or your neighbors!

Local Yarn Shops are special places. They are sources for yarn and patterns and notions, as well as tips and friendship and inspiration. We have recently spruced up the LYS pages on Ravelry and I wanted to highlight a few new features for today’s tip.

1. LYS pages are now public. You do not have to be a Ravelry member to view them, and they can show up in internet searches. If you maintain an LYS page, make sure to add a pretty photo as we now feature the first one on the shop page. If you own an LYS and are not connected to it, check out this guide!
2. For shops that participate in the Ravelry In-Store Sales program, we now indicate that on the page as well. If you’re signed into Ravelry we even have a link to the advanced search of all the patterns available at that shop (highlighted in the photo above). You can browse the list at home and bring a list of patterns to purchase the next time you visit your LYS.

Enjoy checking out your LYS on Ravelry!

Lately I am obsessed with linen. After years of seeing my coworkers make beautiful eye candy posts about linen and summer tops, I finally made myself one this year and now I know what all the fuss was about. Linen garments are wonderfully suited to my climate so I already have my second on the needles. Today I wanted to share recently finished projects from other Ravelers who have seen the light of linen.

The sturdiness of linen makes it an excellent choice for homeware projects like justanotherbrick’s Woven Table Runner, SabinePe’s Citrus Coaster, and PetraMar’s Linen Placements (done in linen stitch!).

These Ravelers will be staying cool like me in their summery tops! Check out dorablu’s Paulina, Kiyomibee’s Maarled Vaara, and tizerlina’s Walk the line.

Summery tops are not the only way to wear linen. Look at nikwik’s Sand Davis, suzu306’s Blooming Shawl #3, Norbertine’s Sparkling Rain, and Kerpena’s Mano Dalia :).

If you want to search for projects made in your favorite fiber, check out the fiber type filter in the advanced search. Here’s a link to a search for linen projects.

The project section of your notebook is the place to share with Ravelry the things you make. Today I want to talk about how to use the information there to learn a bit about yourself as a fiber artist.

At the top of the page there are a number of ways to filter your projects, and on the right is a link to the advanced search. By clicking that you’re taken to a project search pre-loaded with all of the projects you’ve entered into Ravelry. This is where the fun begins! Here’s a listing of all the search filters available to you, so this is all of the data we can play with.

Here are just a few neat things I learned from my advanced search results:

• I really do love colorwork – about a third of my projects use more than one color.

• I have way more knitting mojo this year than last year – not even halfway through the year I have an identical number of FOs!

• I haven’t been knitting my handspun much lately. I can see this by looking at the finished in dates after I add the handspun feature.

I can look at how much I knit yarn from my favorite companies by entering just the company title into the yarn name field, or whether I use my knitting magazines for reading or for patterns by entering a publication name in the source field. I can quickly check which projects I shared with a group, or whether the needle sizes in a circular set match the needle sizes I like to use.

Here is a link to the advanced search of my projects with no filters applied. Enjoy playing around with my data or your own, to get an analytical view of our beloved FOs.

yumiket’s Hokusai swatch #1 great wave

I love to see what people are making in different parts of the world from me. Today I’ll be celebrating the creations of our Japanese Ravelers.

mmmoriiii’s Camino Bubbles, okei’s Banana Leaf Summer Shawl, and 8739210’s Cherry Blossom.

rin2’s Yo-kai watch 3DS case, hiron’s Granny Bag, and Ryo2551’s Round doily 2016.

joujouka’s 夢録-muroku-, nakacho’s CineCittà, and satokichi’s Teru ~spring ver..

I hope you enjoyed these gorgeous projects!

Today is my 8th wedding anniversary, so I was inspired to look for recent wedding-related projects for this week’s eye candy.

First up, I have some gorgeous wedding gifts – some from the bride and some to the couple. Clockwise from top: SingleCrochetKnit’s His Wedding Socks, Curt’s Polka Dot Towels, and kagh’s silver wedding hankie.

Next are some delightful decorations – a creative way to bring some of yourself into your ceremony. brittney07’s Wedding Doilies and amphi’s ring pillow lace.

Finally, of course I had to feature some projects brides made themselves for their big day. smonja’s Bride’s Shoulder Shrug – Capa de noiva (she made those mitts, too! – note actually she made these for a friend!), the crimsonrabbit’s Love in a Bedale Mist, and lievemarrianne’s My wedding (anniversary) dress.

Congrats to all the couples who had projects from their weddings featured today – I hope their marriages are as beautiful as these crafts.

Your heart beating fast, your fingers moving faster – we all know the stress of playing yarn chicken, desperately hoping you have enough to finish your project. For today’s tip I wanted to show you a couple ways I used the Ravelry advanced search functions when planning recent projects to improve my chances of having enough yarn. (Not sure how to find advanced search again? Click the magnifying glass at the top of every page, it has links to all the sections of advanced search!)

view needle sizes in other projects

For my Marin shawl, I had swatched with a couple different needle sizes and was unsure which one to go with. I decided to look at versions in the same yarn and see what look I preferred in the FO.

To do this, from my project page I clicked on the link to all projects in that yarn.

Then I clicked the advanced search link in the top left corner. Next, I selected the pattern name filter and filled in the pattern. Here’s a link to my search. From there, I selected the two needle sizes I was considering (4 and 5) and compared the results.

One thing stood out at me – with a size 5 needle many entries with yardage listed needed more than 1 skein, while with a size 4 needle most entries were able to get by with a single skein. Since I only have one skein of that colorway, I cast on with my size 4s and feel pretty good that I’ll win at yarn chicken.

view yardage in other projects

The problem with Cadeautje was entirely my fault. I looked up in advance how much yarn the pattern called for, and picked out exactly the right amount at Rhinebeck. But somehow when I sat down to knit I realized that I wrote down the wrong number along the way and only had 125 yards, instead of the 190 called for in the pattern. Since sometimes patterns overestimate the yardage needed, I decided to look at the range used in knitting my size to see if I had any chance of making it.

This time I followed the projects link in the pattern box on my project page.

Then I clicked to get to the advanced search and entered my size (F, as it is called in the pattern), in the search field at the top of the page. I ended up with this search. Then, I called up the yardage filter and just looked at the data there.

It was possible I had a shot. 45 projects in the 1-150 yards range. I entered a custom range of 1-130, to confirm.

Sad trombone sound, it was unlikely. Okay, so if I didn’t want to lose at yarn chicken, what were my options? I filtered my stash for other yarns at the same weight (check out this tip to learn how) and success! I had some candidates. But how would I distribute the different colors throughout my project? Back to advanced search, I looked for projects with 3 or more colors (normally I’d look for two, but this project involves yarn and thrums so I figured 3 colors probably meant 2 yarns and 1 fiber). Satisfied I had a backup plan if I did run out of yarn, I was able to confidently cast on my project.

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning a little about how I use the advanced search to plan my projects. If you have any great tips we’d love to hear them in For the Love of Ravelry!

Today I wanted to look at pretty pictures of yarn. I loaded up the stash advanced search and started applying filters looking for inspiration. I found it in the foreign objects attribute – these are all yarns that are handspun with objects incorporated as part of the process. I loved the variety of approaches and found that all of them definitely counted as eye candy.

First up, some art yarns that incorporate a variety of foreign objects. What great textures these all have! doodler01’s #forestfloorsal, nabisknit’s Kraken SAL, and squiished’s Merry Gold ‘Round.

Next, some quiet beauties that prove that simple can be stunning. KristinaS’ Octarine, meliluc’s Smoothie fraise-cassis, and knitMIT’s Nectar Handpaint Superwash.

Finally, some statement pieces – these spinners went big and it paid off! chemlady’s 80s Charm Necklace Redux, spectre120’s RegenboogtruiEenhoornGlitterScheetjes, and CyberJulka’s TDF 2015 in Jenkins Woodworking Lovers Group II.

Here’s a link to the search I used. I hope you can find inspiration perusing the attributes as well!