RavelryRandomizer

This is for any craftsperson who uses Ravelry.com and has trouble picking out a project to do! It will take in information about the kind of pattern you want to do, and we will pick the rest.

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Inspiration

My inspiration was my own experiences as a crafter, along with being part of many communities who all generally have the same complaint - that they can never decide which project they're going to do next.

What it does

It will take any number of project parameters - including yarn type, the amount of yarn needed, and other pattern information. The minimum information it needs is your Ravelry username, and where you are looking to search for a pattern. If no other inputs are given, it will choose a random pattern from anywhere in that location with any parameters. If parameters are included, it will choose a random pattern that conforms to those parameters. It will give the title of the pattern, a photo and a link to download. You can re-randomize as many times as you want, changing parameters if needed.

How I built it

I built this using React, using Material UI components, and by communicating with the Ravelry API.

Challenges I ran into

I am not very experienced in React, so figuring that out took a long time - along with the Ravelry API not being the best, the documentation is confusing and not very thorough.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am proud of getting a decent looking React site together considering my inexperience with the framework. Additionally, I have never worked with authentication into an external API or server, and figuring that out felt good.

What I learned

I learned how to accept the faults in my project and move on to get a working product before a pretty, detailed product. I also learned how to keep myself on tract, working alone made that tough but I was able to keep myself to a schedule.

What's next for RavelryRandomizer

Making it more pretty looking, organizing my code better, and more options for searching! I would like for users to randomize over the whole site (which would take forever the way I'm doing it now, so a better searching algorithm as well), along with the website's other ways to store patterns.

Thumbnail credits go to Ravelry.com

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