This is what Annalisa and Borboleta got me for my birthday.
It’s funny to think about the fact that they went to one of the oldest craft shops in Madrid. This shop celebrated their 100 anniversary this year so I’m not lying when I say that it’s old. The site pictures were clearly made with the shop closed because on a normal day you can’t even walk in there. It’s like a village market but with buttons and ribbons and wool and anything you can imagine. But it’s normally so crowded that I only go there when I need something that I can’t find anywhere else, because my friends, they have EVERYTHING.
So they went to this crazy shop, struggled with all the queues and unfriendly employees, and bought me this without having any idea at all about wool or knitting. I’m having fun just at imagining them there 🙂
I loved the present, they way they thought what I would like. But what they don’t know is that I always have problems to find projects when I just have one skein of non-sock yarn. Luckily we have Ravelry for this kind of problems. Searching in groups I found the following that could help us here:
- One skein projects
- One skein knit-a-long
- One skeiners
- One skein swap
- One skein crochet
- One skein wonders
We also have to option of advanced search.
Apart from the usual filters we normally use to just look for a kind of garment, we can also introduce parameters like yardage or meterage.
And we can also introduce a weight or needle size.
Et voilà ! You have a much shorter list to browse.
You can also apply more filters. If you don’t want to spend your money on a pattern you can go for free ones. I use the Purchase Online or Ravelry Downloads since I don’t normally have printed patterns.
What about you? Which filters do you normally use?
Oh, yes, Ravelry filters are so useful!! I use them all the time to find patterns or projects. Very recently I found a quick and perfect project for the yarn I had in my stash, that was also very close to the idea I had in mind: I wanted mitts with cables, in worsted weight yarn, and a free pattern, and I then found these cute mitts that were perfect for the present I wanted to make:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stalwart-staghorn
I just love Ravelry. The only problem is that I find more patterns than I will ever have time to knit 🙂
Those mittens are nice. I made a similar pair for a friend some time ago but I don’t remember the pattern. I found it on Ravelry though 🙂