A roundup of Ravelry 101

Sometime back I began putting together a Ravelry 101 series which featured tutorials on how to get the best out of the website Ravelry.

Topics that I've covered so far include:

• why you need to be on Ravelry now
• how to tag within your queue
• how to add your stash to your Ravelry profile
• 3 steps to choosing an alternative yarn using Ravelry

In my list of upcoming blog posts I have:

• how to add your blog post to a project
• how to use the library function
• browsing for patterns, what are the options
• uploading a picture to your project
• how to sort through your Ravelry stash

This blog is about providing the suzy hausfrau community with the information, knowledge and inspiration that they want. So I'm going to ask you!

If you would like me to cover any other topic in my Ravelry 101 series, please leave a comment below.

Come on, don't be shy!

suzy xoxo

ravelry 101 | how to tag within your queue

Is your Ravelry queue groaning at the seams? Do you remember putting something gorgeous in there and now you can't find it?

Well if you are like me and spend a huge amount of time on Ravelry and are always adding projects to your queue, you will want to be able to access them easily in the future.

Well today's blog post is perfect. It is another in my 'Ravelry 101' series. This post will show you how to add tags to the projects within your Ravelry queue, change the yarn for that project when it's within the queue, and then search your queue by tag.

Click on play to learn how or here to watch the video via youtube.

Ravelry 101 | 5-steps | how to add your stash to your profile

So you've just bought some yarn. You admire it for a couple of days, take it out from time to time and give it a good squeeze...don't tell me you don't know what I mean. Then you place it in the stash right?

If we're honest most of us are 'stashers', very few yarn tragics in my experience buy yarn, knit, buy yarn, knit, and so on, in that order. There is always some stashing going on.

So how on earth do you keep a catalogue of that stash? So that you don't pull out 6 skeins of MadTosh in 3 years time, and say 'oh I forgot I had that'. Again, don't tell me you don't know what I mean.

Did you know that Ravelry can help you with this catalogue? That you can add your stash right in the very spot where you search for patterns, from the very comfort of your computer screen! You can search within your stash by weight, fibre or date purchased. This will help you in the long run with your project planning, and maybe even your yarn budget!

The full instructions (including pictures) are below, click on the 'Read more' link.

ravelry 101 | 3 steps to choosing an alternative yarn

Do you suffer from yarn-lock? Like when you've found the most divine pattern, can't get it out of your head...but the choices of yarn are so overwhelming that your brain is in 24hour yarn-lock. Or maybe you just head for the recommended yarn on the pattern and that's that. I could say lucky you, you would certainly sleep better at night...but I hate to be the one to tell you this, you are seriously missing out, or dare I say it, in a yarn-rut!

Choice is everywhere and we are all suffering from information overload, and more than that, life is just too short not to try out as many exquisite yarns as you can. I'm not wanting to be presumptuous here, but most of you have heard of Ravelry right? Think Facebook with a purpose for knitters and crochet folk? Now, if you have, don't go laughing at me. Because every time I do a pop up shop or market it's obvious that there are still lots of people missing out on what is singularly THE BEST RESOURCE for yarn tragics! Full stop, exclamation mark, exclamation mark again.

So today is the first in a series I'm calling Ravelry 101. A how-to-guide, how to get the best out of THE BEST RESOURCE for yarn tragics...and today's topic is how to navigate through Ravelry to help you overcome yarn-lock or yarn-rut, and choose an alternative yarn for that project.

Let's begin...

1.  When you belong to Ravelry (btw it's free), you can begin to add potential projects to your queue. Here is my queue and today I want to find an alternative yarn for project #298. Spring cloud by Sachiko Uemera.

2.  When I click on that project it brings up the front page full of information about the pattern and details of the yarn suggested. But I don't (yet) have Louet Gems yarn in my store and well call me crazy but suzy likes to shop at suzy hausfrau. So I click on yarn ideas.

3.  Bringing up yarn ideas I strike gold. Two people have used Shibui Knits Staccato (a yarn that I stock).  I can then click on the 'used 2 times' link and check out their projects - pictures of the finished project, what rating they give that yarn, what needle size they use,  any relevant blog posts and so much more.

It's that easy. If this post has introduced you to Ravelry, don't be afraid, three million members can't be wrong! But be warned, it's addictive and hours will go by as you begin to unravel all the possibilities out there.

Have a great (long) weekend and a Happy Easter,
suzy xoxo