I found myself in the knitting doldrums the other day and fancied a little light pattern browsing. Nothing serious and with no intention of making any firm plans, you understand. Just a casual perusal of some lovely knitted items, with a possibility of purchase.
Ordinarily in such circumstances I would have turned to Ravelry, but since their accessibility debacle I am no longer using the site and so instead I turned to Yarn Database.
I had previously registered there as a designer but never really investigated the offerings as a purchaser and I have to say that I really enjoyed using it.
If you create a login for the site you can browse all the individual designers and also create a ‘follow’ list of your favourites. You can also apply filters and search for patterns under a range of different attributes.
It took just a few minutes to compile a list of suitable shawl projects - and yes, to buy a couple - and all without going near Ravelry.
The only thing I do miss Ravelry for is seeing other people’s projects -getting an idea of the different colours used, how items look when worn etc. For this I turned to Instagram. Most designers create a hashtag for their designs - for instance I have #FussFreeFestivalShawl for my pattern of the same name - and it’s easy to type the hashtag into the search bar and pull up a list of projects, often with details of yarns used etc. Perfect for that dose of knitty inspiration.
Anyway, my point is that life after Ravelry doesn’t have to be hard work. It just needs a bit of willingness to look in a few different places and to actively seek out and follow those designers whose work you value. Since stepping away from Ravelry I’ve found that I’m far less likely to be influenced by the ‘hot right now’ page and much more likely to seek out patterns that I’m actually likely to knit. Ones that work for me, my lifestyle and my stash, rather than being influenced by the bigger names. Having said that, I did see the new Stephen West Slipstravaganza blanket yesterday and bought it in a flash.
In case you are curious, these are the shawl patterns that caught my eye. All are non-Ravelry links:
