Ravelry has a very large network of online groups and forums. There are groups for everything you can imagine. I’m in a group for people who like the Wheel Of Time fantasy series and another for people who hate charts. There is also a group for blind and low vision knitters. I don’t post to the groups very often but they can be very helpful.

Finding And Joining A Group

1. Go to Ravelry and log in if you aren’t already.
2. Go to the top of the page and arrow down to find the “Groups” link.
3. This page will list the groups you are in. You can search for a group as well as browse. Searching will probably be faster. The search field can be found under the “Search Groups” heading. It’s also the only form field on the page so you can easily find it with your screen reader’s find next form field command.
4. Let’s search for the group for blind and low vision knitters. Type “Blind” in the search box and press enter.
5. Use your screen reader’s find next text command to find the words Search Results for blind”. Then arrow down to view your search results. I got 13 results in my search including one very funny one at the end of the list. The biggest group for blind knitters is called “Blind Webs”, and it is the first result.
6. Press enter on the group you want to join or learn more about.

This will take you to the group’s main page and you can explore to find out more about the group. There is a search edit box after the fresh discussion threads if you want to search the groups or forums.

The quickest way to find the “Join This Group” link is to use your screen reader’s links list. You can also find it a few links down from the search edit box.

Posting To A Group

On the individual group pages there will be a heading called “Fresh Discussion Threads”. Below this heading you will find a link to post a new topic as well as a link to subscribe to the group. This subscribe link takes you to the RSS feed and, if you want, you can get a message when there is a new topic in the group.

Below these links there is a table with the latest discussion threads. Press enter on any of the titles and it will take you to the thread. You can also subscribe to the individual threads from their specific pages.

To post to the thread just press enter on the reply link after any post to answer that comment specifically or use the “Reply To Thread” link at the bottom of the page for a more general response.

To quickly get to a list of your groups just press enter on the “Groups” link at the top of the page. The first heading will tell how many groups you are in; just arrow down to read the list. Have fun checking out all the different groups in Ravelry. There’s one for just about everything and if you can’t find the group you want, you can start one.