For those who like to search their libraries for patterns they already own, there’s a kludge-y way to at least save the names of those patterns along with the books they’re in. These instructions are for a computer, not a mobile device.

Get Your Listing

1. go to the Patterns page
2. do an advanced search
3. clear every checkbox, EXCEPT FOR “in my library” under the “Availability” grouping
4. near the upper-right corner of the first results page, select “list view”
5. sort them any way you like (alphabetical probably makes the most sense, especially if you use method 1 below)

There are now two choices for capturing the names, one tedious, one really tedious.

But before you start, note just how little information is shown: pattern name, source name, designer, number of patterns, and date added. There’s no information on the pattern category, yarn weight, design gauge, sizes, and so on. This severe limitation may make you abandon the whole idea, but see the Options at the bottom for ideas.

Method 1: The Tedious Way

If you want the text searchable with minimal effort, just save each results page as a PDF, by using your computer’s “print” keyboard shortcut (it’s probably Ctrl-p or Command-p) and printing to a PDF file instead of your printer. If your list of “printers” doesn’t include an option for “PDF”, you should be able to get an add-on for your browser.

Method 2: The Really Tedious Way

If you want the pattern, book, or designer names to be type-able or sortable in any way, it’s going to be really tedious. You need to capture the text of the entire pattern list in a word processor file.

Details

On each page of your search results, you need to select the contents of the list. The easiest way to do so is to click-drag across it, but you have to avoid clicking on any pattern name, because they’re all links. So click and hold just to the left of the column heading “Pattern name”, then drag down and to the right until the date in the last row is highlighted. Use your keyboard shortcut to make a copy (probably Ctrl-c or Command-c), then in your word processor file, do one of two “paste” commands:

1. If you want the URL links, then just paste with your regular paste command, which is probably Ctrl-v or Command-v. (Note that the links will be to pages at a certain website.)
2. If you don’t want the links, then you need to do your word processor’s version of “paste special” so you can choose an option like “unformatted text” or “ASCII” rather than “HTML” (because pasting as HTML is what preserves the links). The keyboard shortcut to pop open the “paste formatting” dialog box might be Ctrl-Shift-v. Otherwise, it’s probably in the Edit menu and called something like “Paste Special.”

Make sure you save the word processor file frequently, rather than waiting until you’ve done all 52 pages, JUST IN CASE. I always say, “Save early, save often,” and saving after pasting in every page wouldn’t be overkill (the keyboard shortcut is probably just Ctrl-s or Command-s).

Once You Have the Entire List

Hopefully your word processor will keep the tabs that separate the columns of data, which will make it super-easy to select the entire contents in your completed file, then do your word processor’s “convert text to table”, where you will specify that tabs separate the data.

Once it’s all in a table, you can sort on any of the columns, or on several columns in your desired order.

If your word processor did not keep the tabs, well, I’m sorry, but converting to a table will be a colossal nightmare. You will at least be able to search for names, even though you won’t be able to sort by any of the information except the pattern name (because it will be the first thing on every line).

Options

If you have thousands of patterns and don’t want to wade through all of them to find just, say, the cardigans, then do either of the methods above for each category you want separately.

So in addition to checking the “in my library” box, check the box for the specific type of pattern, like “cardigan”. Then do the steps for your preferred method. When you’ve captured all of those patterns, clear that checkbox and click in the next desired category, like “hat” or “shawl”. Do your preferred method.

If you have so many patterns in a category that you need to further sub-classify them, you can select whatever further attributes you want to group them by, then capture that grouping. For example, you have cardigan patterns in several yarn weights, so in addition to selecting “cardigan”, select one yarn weight, then capture that list with your preferred method. Change to a different yarn weight, then capture that list.

I warned you it would be tedious.