I’ve been doing a lot of project planning in the past few weeks and have found myself using Ravelry’s advanced search function quite a bit. It occurred to me that perhaps not everyone knows about this really powerful tool, so here’s a little photo tutorial showing how you can use filters to narrow down your Ravelry search results!

There are different ways you can access the advanced search function, but one of the most straightforward is to click the “Patterns” tab on the Ravelry home page and then select “use the pattern browser & advanced search.”

This will bring up all the patterns in Ravelry’s databse, along with panels on the left side of the screen that will let you filter to find just what you’re looking for. You can filter by category (clothing, accessories, etc.), by yarn weight, by availability (free, available to purchase on Ravelry), and, most relevantly for us, by technique! A drop down menu at the top of the left hand panel gives you the option to reorder the filters if you’re having trouble finding the one you want; you can also drag and drop them to bring the ones you’d like to work with to the top of the panel, something I only found out in the process of writing this post. There is, indeed, always something new to learn!

To give you an example search, the other day I was looking for a stranded colourwork sweater pattern to knit for my partner. I started by selecting “Knitting” under craft so I could filter out other types of patterns. Under category, I selected clothing, which then gives lots more subcategories — in this case, I selected sweater, then pullover. I was able to filter for stranded patterns by selecting “stranded” in the “Colorwork” subcategory (under “Attributes”). Since I already had yarn in stash I planned to use, I also selected fingering and sport under “Weight.” Finally, under “Age/Size'/Fit” I restricted my search to adult garments.

This still left me with 36 pages (!) of results, so I perhaps need to think a bit more about ways to filter — I want to knit a circular yoke sweater, so I could select “seamless” under construction. I could also also specify that I’d like to be able to purchase the pattern online. And I could use the “Gender” section to stipulate that I’d like a pattern that’s tagged either unisex or male. This gets me down to just three pages of results — much more manageable! And if at any time I feel my search has gotten too narrow, all the filters I’ve put in appear at the top of the results with a handy Clear button next to them, so I can easily get rid of one or two if I’d like to see more results.

Ravelry also has a handy “save search” function. If you want to come back to your results, you’ll find “save search” on the top left.

The advanced search function is great if, like in the example above, you have a really specific idea of a type of project you want to cast on. But it can also be really helpful for more open-ended browsing! Say you recently tried out a new technique and want to practice it more in your next project — you can use Ravelry’s filters to help! You’ll find most techniques in one of the sub-categories of “Attributes.” Selecting “Fabric Characteristics,” for instance, gives you options to zero in on brioche or tuck stitch patterns.

Or clicking “Design Elements” and then “Edging” opens up the door to finding projects that use applied icord (one of my personal favourites!)

While you won’t find every single technique in the search filters, you’ll find lots of them … and we’ve also put together bundles for techniques covered by Boost Your Knitting that you can’t easily search for (like tuck stitches, dip stitches, and marlisle). You can find them here.

Once you’ve started using filters to help you sift through the 900,000 + (!) patterns on Ravelry, you’ll find you use them all the time! You can also use filters, of course, after you’ve already started a search by typing in the Ravelry search bar — you’ll find them in the exact same spot, on the left panel!

A final quick note — all the screenshots for this tutorial were taken while browsing the desktop version of Ravelry. If you’re using the mobile version (on a phone or tablet), it’ll look almost exactly the same, except you might need to click “filter these results” on the top right of your screen.

Right, I’m off to do a bit more project searching — and maybe actually a bit of knitting! Happy planning!