Did the whole needlecraft world change while I was away? Ive been shopping for yarns, and looking for patterns made from them & the items are overwhelmingly crochet. While I can crochet, I dont care for the texture, as compared to knitting. King Cole, Caron, Hobby Lobby & Lion brand were ALL that way. I did shop some pricey yarn sites (Rowan, Bergere de France, Jamison etc.). They had more knitting patterns but they were out of my price range.
Anybody else notice this?
Yes, ive noticed this as well. Used to be able to find ample knitting patterns but find crocheting patterns have taken over.
You can search for specific yarns on Ravelry and see all of the projects people have used the yarn for.
Im not on Ravelry since they kicked all the conservatives off. Im not affiliated with any party but I did defend a few conservatives purely on a logical fallacy basis (I have made a life long study of logic & the Trivium). I concluded that the owners/staff were extremely biased - illogically so. So I never made any effort to rejoin.
I understand that another forum has taken much the same space. They allow zero politics, which is the proper approach, imo. I’m trying to remember the name. I was around for the name selection. I thought it was weird & easily forgettable then. Still do, since I’ve forgotten it… Conformation bias?
Ha! 
If I think of it I’ll post it.
I have not experienced the shift to crochet patterns that you mentioned.
Have you tried an online shop such as woolwarehouse for patterns?
I agree forums are best really to avoid subjects such as politics unless they are specifically a political forum. I am super cautious about any forum i will use, just this one actually. Clean, helpful and well moderated.
It was fiberkind.com. There seem to be some big problems with it now. All kinds of stuff popped up when I did a search. It does not like my VPN either. Moving on …
Maybe rejoin ravelry just for the access to a variety of patterns and the ability to save the ones you like?
Just going back to your earlier comment about patterns and yarn being out of budget. I almost always sub yarn. The last two tops I made would have been well over £200 in the stated yarn and I made them for around £15 each.
Love Crafts has a lot of knitting patterns, and you can sometimes find some cool knitting pattern books from Half Price Books (they have an online presence if you don’t see anything in your local store.) I’ve gotten several from them and some spinning books :).