Ravelry’s Hot Right Now list is like the New York Stock Exchange for knitters and crocheters. It’s a fantastic way to see the patterns enticing fellow crafters and discover new releases. It’s also a highlighted feature when you click “patterns” in the navigation bar:

So, it’s a really easy and quick way to browse the patterns that are, as the name suggests, hot right now. But did you know you can also use Ravelry’s search function to filter for patterns by yarn name and more?

Searching for Patterns by Yarn Name on Ravelry

Let’s say you’re on Ravelry’s Hot Right Now search page, as shown above.

To find the current Hot Right Now patterns in Brown Sheep Yarns, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Pay attention to the list of filters on the lefthand side of the screen. At the very bottom, click “suggested yarn name.”

Here, you can type in “Brown Sheep” and click “apply.”

Now you can see all of the Hot Right Now patterns that use Brown Sheep Company yarns!

Filtering for Specific Yarns on Ravelry

Filtering for “Brown Sheep” gives you ALL of the patterns using ANY Brown Sheep Company yarn—Lamb’s Pride, Lamb’s Pride Bulky, Nature Spun, Lanaloft, Cotton Fleece, Prairie Spun, etc.

If you’d like to see the Hot Right Now patterns featuring a specific yarn, simply click the pencil icon and update the entry field to the yarn you want to see patterns for. In this case, we chose the classic Lamb’s Pride:

Filtering your search by a specific yarn name is a great option when you’re searching for a project for yarn you have in your stash. It’s also great when you’re shopping in your LYS and looking for a project for a yarn you’re considering!

Alternative Sorting Options

The “Hot Right Now” list is not your only option when sorting patterns on Ravelry. You can also sort by “New to Ravelry,” “Most Popular,” “Most Projects,” “Most Favorites,” and more:

Searching by “Most Popular” and “Most Projects” are two of our favorite ways to filter knitting patterns. These patterns are more likely to have been knit by hundreds of knitters, so you know you can rely on a well-written pattern, or even just a well-documented pattern. You can search through other knitters’ pattern notes, check out yarn amounts used for different sizes, and scour for any errata or issues.

Stacking Filters for More Precise Searches

As you can see above we’ve now sorted for the “Most Projects” in Lamb’s Pride. But the precision of the search functionality doesn’t end there.

Let’s say you want to make an adult sized pullover in Lamb’s Pride that has colorwork. Time to go back to the lefthand Filter column!

Under Category, click Clothing and select Sweater > Pullover.

Now, under Attributes,  click Colorwork and select the type of colorwork you’d like to do. We’re going to select two choices: mosaic and stranded.

At this point, make sure you’ve chosen how the filters should relate. For example, if you want a sweater that is mosaic AND stranded, you could choose that in the filter at the very bottom of the filter box that contains the Colorwork attribute. This will show you only patterns that use both techniques. As you can see below, there is only one pullover that has both the mosaic and stranded colorwork technique!

Choose “Or” to get mosaic OR stranded results for mosaic colorwork pullovers and stranded colorwork pullovers:

Finally, to further filter these patterns for adult sizes only, scroll down to the Age / Size / Fit section and click Age or Size > Adult.

And there you have it! There are 33 pullovers for adults that feature mosaic or stranded colorwork in Lamb’s Pride:

Note that you can save your search by clicking the “Save Search” button beneath your filtered choices. All your saved searches live at the top of the lefthand filter menu.

We encourage crafters to explore Ravelry’s pattern sorting and filtering system to quickly and efficiently identify projects. There are so many ways to search and further filter results. You can add in yardage amounts, gauge, the ability to choose from your existing Ravelry library or patterns you’ve favorited, plus other attributes like construction methods (bottom up, seamless, short rows, etc), design elements (pockets, collars, zippers, etc), fabric characteristics (cables, lace, bobbles, etc), and more!

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