If you like Yarn Database, here are other sites and tools you might find helpful or fun.
Accessibility
- Accessibility for Fiber Festivals — Great article on creating an accessible event by Pacific Knit Co. designer Jamie Lomax’s sibling Grey Lundy (they/them), a knitter, dyer, weaver, and psychiatrist, who self-identifies as queer, non-binary, autistic, and fat. Covers physical accessibility, dietary accessibility, sensory accessibility, masking and more.
- Accessible Patterns Index — Renee Van Hoy and Nicky Jensen have created a database of low-vision-friendly, screen-reader-friendly, Braille, and other accessible knitting, crochet and loom patterns.
- Pattern Writing and Designing for Cognitive Accessibility — Excellent piece by designer Woolly Wormhead about how to layout and write your pattern so that it’s accessible to people with cognitive differences like ADHD, autism and more.
- Payhip — How to Maximize the Accessibility of Your Payhip Shop, Part 1 and Part 2. Sarah Bradberry offers an easy guide to make your Payhip shop accessible for disabled users.
- Screen Readers — Removing Barriers to Crafting in Written Patterns by Nicky Jensen.
Community
- Local Yarn Shop (LYS) Finder — Worldwide directory from Knitting Fever.
- Makers of Color Collective — This directory from Brittany at KnotBadBritt includes testers, designers and indie dyers of color in the fiber industry.
- Shave ’Em to Save ’Em product directory — Support U.S. farmers who raise rare breed sheep, and enjoy beautiful fiber, yarn and more.
- Star Magnolias’ BIPOC-owned Farms Directory — Links to BIPOC-owned farms that produce wool and fiber.
- The Knitting PT – Physical therapist Andrea has tips, videos, and physical tools to help crafters who have issues with muscle tension, etc., from their favorite hobby.
- YarnPond — Find pattern testers or designers who need testers. Tech editors and more are also available.
Tools
- Airtable — Victoria Marchant has put together a beautiful example and blank template to show you how to create an inventory of your stash, your projects and your patterns using Airtable.
- Itemtopia — Free app for Android or iOS that creates a very customizable inventory of your yarn, tools, patterns, projects, etc.
- Loom FAQs — Advice and conversion tables from Knitting Board for converting needle or hook patterns to a loom. A little extrapolation will help you do the reverse.
- Mosaic Pattern Generator — Scott Pakin’s page lets you create your own charted repeat or click a Random button, then see your result as a band or tiled on graph paper. The Random patterns are editable, and all patterns can be saved or printed.
- Mosaic Pattern Generator — Laura Kogler’s mosaic generator lets you specify the size of each square. It includes two options for a very interesting design. The Dissolve button slowly evolves your design toward horizontal stripes. Mutate changes each repeat slightly from the previous one. Patterns can be saved as .png files.
- Random Lace Pattern Generator — Select the number of rows and columns in your repeat, then choose your preferred increases and decreases, and off you go with Knitting Fool’s Random Lace Pattern Generator.
- Stitchfiddle — Convert your photos or drawings to colorwork patterns, or use Stitchfiddle’s canvas tool for knitting, crochet or cross-stitch to create a pattern chart.
- WorldKnits Knitting Calculators — Use WorldKnits’ calculators to map out increases, decreases and tapers.
- YarnBuddy —YarnBuddy is a row counter and project tracker for Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch). You can import pattern PDFs, set up multiple counters that can be linked and set to repeat, add project details, images, tags, and more. You can also keep an inventory of your yarn stash and notions/tools. It’s free to use for up to 10 projects and unlimited stashed yarn.
Yarn Substitution
- Yarn Database Guide to Yarn Substitution
- YarnSub — This very helpful database helps you find substitutes for yarns that are no longer available, find an affordable alternative, or use what’s in your stash instead of buying new.