It functions as an organizational tool for a variety of fiber arts, including knitting, crocheting, spinning and weaving.

Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.

Ravelry also includes a searchable community-edited yarn and pattern database where users share information and project photos.

"[4]For social networking, the site has forums, groups, and friend-related features that give people ways to interact with other knitters, crocheters, weavers and spinners.

Yarnies exist in a separate category from users who are simply selling yarn they own but did not make themselves, and must create a special business-type profile on the site, "blur[ring] the lines between a commercial operation and a homemade undertaking.

"[6]: 90  Knitters may use Ravelry to fund-raise for charities, an example of "an activity that straddles the commercial and the non-commercial economies,"[10]: 11  and the site has been also used by some for market research.

[13] On June 23, 2019, Ravelry announced via a blog post that it would ban expressions of support of U.S. president Donald Trump and his administration;[14] after Joe Biden's inauguration, the statement was updated to clarify that "this policy is in effect in perpetuity".

[15] In June 2020, Ravelry implemented a site redesign which drew significant complaint from users who stated that the new layout triggered a variety of neurological symptoms, including photosensitive epilepsy, migraines, and vertigo.

[20] After analyzing the issue, Robert Bartholomew — a medical sociologist and an expert in mass hysteria,[21] but not in web accessibility — published a blog post on Psychology Today describing Ravelry as "an ordinary website" with "no flashing lights or obvious features that should cause health issues", and concluded that the user complaints were most likely the result of "mass suggestion and the redefinition of various ailments as Ravelry-related".

[15] The Epilepsy Foundation of America, however, noted that visual patterns such as stripes of contrasting colors could trigger a seizure, and specifically mentioned Ravelry as a potential issue.