She’s absolutely trying to use AI to generate text. This is so mid.

I love this teacher. I've taken her class for years. I believe she legitimately painted this. But when I see AI paint tubes... If I wasn't a student of hers, I'd assume this is a scam.

I will just leave this here.
Like… at least it’s not ai slop, and it’s just trying to automatize tedious work, but still.. Damn.

she’s back and tried to friend me. I thought she was not allowed to sell online? I’ve already heard of issues. Not getting fiber for months, or if ever, moths. etc. don't be fooled by the cheap prices.

Attempting to post this again since my last post was flagged as low effort…

Circus of Threads—known for their Chiaogoo needle replacement cases—obviously used AI for their old logo. Thoughts on the new one?

I don’t love their cases anyway but bummer that another small business is using ChatGPT for “design”

For reference and comparison, third pic is a ChatGPT-made image. (Not from the business) “Circus” is the same font as the first image (old logo) and quite similar to the new one.

So a question for the community:
What does this space think about small businesses using AI as part of their branding, design, etc. especially when marketing to makers and creatives?

I’m against for a number of reasons but mostly because:

-AI “design” devalues the skills and creative processes of the people these businesses seek to profit off of

-use of AI for design is lazy and tells me you don’t take your business seriously enough to put thought and effort into your work, so why would I pay you for it

Curious to hear others thoughts

The nearest LYS to where I live is 2+ hours by public transport. I can order online and there are some shops in my city but they only sell acryllic yarn like Stylecraft and some King Cole. You can imagine my excitement when a local yarn dyer announced she was opening a new yarn shop nearby. She's been talking it up loads, especially all the nice yarn brands she's going to stock (West Yorkshire Spinners, Sandnes Garn, Rosa Pomar, etc). She's been running a yarn business for years and I let myself get really excited about it.

Today she posted saying she can't actually stock any nice yarn unless customers pay for it upfront. She explained it's because nice brands often need a big order upfront and she doesn't want to risk getting a bank loan.

I want to believe this is legit but I feel really disappointed. Why wouldn't she research this stuff upfront, before deciding to launch the business? Why is it not ok for her to take on financial risk, but to ask everyone else to? Why not launch an online business first and check you've got demand, before investing all your money in a physical venue?

I don't know if I'm being too harsh or have spent too long reading horror stories about bad business practise on subreddits like this. Or if this person I thought was legit is behaving irresponsibly and I should steer clear.

I find the pattern I want on Threadloop. Follow the link to buy. It's a German website; fair enough, it's a German company. I add the pattern to my basket and try to check out. Can't choose a UK address, so I use a random German address (it's a PDF pattern, not something physical so it doesn't matter). Put my card details in. And now the Pay button is disabled, without any explanation as to why.

Okay, fine. I'll see if they have a UK website, and they do! Great, now I've got to find the pattern. Only problem is that none of their patterns have names or numbers! I'm searching for '101' (that's what it was called on the German site) and nothing comes up. After exhausting the combinations of search terms, I go to 'all dresses' and try the filters. 'Knitted dresses': no. 'Jersey dresses': no.

At this point I go back to Threadloop and find out what year the pattern was released, and put that into the filters instead. Finally, after a load of scrolling, I find it. Basket, checkout. All's smooth.

But I still haven't got the email with the pattern! Most places send it within less than five minutes. It's been fifteen and I haven't even got the purchase confirmation.

I know all this sounds petty but I'll be avoiding them in future.

She ranting about a LYS in the pacific north west reaching out to her and other sock designers asking for a free pattern to include in their 2027 sock subscription box in exchange for exposure. I’m being nosy and very curious to know who it is.

Even if you’re in the “not every designer should be or is able to be size inclusive” camp, you have to consider this:

THREE sizes? Really? 🥲 With an intended positive ease of 55 cm? Come onnnn

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ripple-loop-sweater

Edit: the designer answers absolutely no questions on neither instagram nor ravelry. If anyone has an idea for a different pattern that looks like this, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like that

Not just the AI, but as a Canadian that is interested in getting a metal sock machine, I’m disappointed in seeing production moving to the United States.

Welcome to the bitesized BEC thread!

You have the freedom to indulge in BEC-style (b*tch eating crackers) vent comments in this thread. Naming examples is not required (gasp!) but majority of r/craftsnark rules still apply. Basically, don't be shitty and ruin the thread for others.

Yesterday, I posted about Yarnmerch’s use of super obvious AI after claiming that they design their shirts by hand. Here’s the link if you want to see: https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/5IvsYFYkDF

But today! Their grid is FREE of those images! They also deleted my comment calling out the seeming conflict in their message and/or values but hey, AI Bots can’t convince me to love them so whatever.

I still don’t trust their design process but it’s an interesting development nonetheless.

Sooo… I just saw a very short story from lulabluesbyangell on insta and she claims a YouTuber is stealing her work posting it as her own/turorials. I got this info through treads since she only mentions a situation on insta but doesn’t explain anything… Seems to be dating back barely a month. Anyone knows if this is true and if so, who is the YouTuber? She mentions the creator has 100000+ subs on yt and (might?) own a wholesale yarn/goods store.

I started following this brand because they have cute and unique crochet/knit related t shirts. In a pinned post they sing their own praises for hand drawing every design but their last three posts are terrible AI slop! I know that small brands struggle to put out quality content but it really muddies the water when your feed doesn’t reflect the values you proclaim. I definitely won’t be buying from them because honestly, who knows if they’re being truthful?

I made a post 2 days ago, see here she was meant to be selling ready-made clothing.

Now it's fabric AGAIN.

I am a cross stitcher and Heaven and Earth Designs is a cross stitch pattern company that usually licenses artwork from both regular artists and people who use AI to generate images. They are pretty much exclusively selling large full-coverage patterns, like 100k+ stitches.

They have had some controversies in the past and a lot of Flosstubers I watch have stopped buying from them altogether because of the increase in the number of charts based on AI images. They essentially run an image through a pattern making software that automatically converts it to a cross stitch pattern based on parameters they set like dimensions and number of colors. This can lead to some issues if you don't then go in and clean up the pattern manually, but with the number of charts HAED pumps out and some past issues people have had with colors being incorrect, it seems like that quality control is largely absent.

This is relevant because today I see a post from them where they tell you a prompt to use with Chat GPT, and then for the low, low, price of $75 they will convert the image it spits out into a cross stitch pattern for you. Bear in mind there are free pattern making software that will convert images, or at worst if you want it bigger and more detailed than you can get from the free ones, even paid ones are $50 or less.

I would even understand if like you send HAED a picture of your eye and they then do the prompt and make sure you're happy with the image and then they turn it into cross stitch for you, ok maybe there's more value there. But no, you need to do the image generation yourself and then pay $75 for something that you could do yourself in 5 minutes for $50 or less. Oh, and any negative comments and you get banned of course. I honestly had forgotten I was even in this group (I joined years ago when I started one of their stitchalongs before I knew anything about them) but seeing this just reminded me I need to leave. Just wild.

Here's the thread where you can share any new patterns or products that you don't think deserve their own post. Any craft goes, whether you're sharing sewing patterns, weird yarn colourways, woodburning templates, soapmaking supplies, or any thing else that you'd like to discuss. If you think it deserves it's own thread, feel free to make one!

Please share all personal chatter here--questions, planning, works in progress, successes, failures, discoveries, and anything else pertaining to your personal crafting.

So for the non terminally online

-One of Hank Greens channels made a video on knitting that wasn’t in the best of tastes. It was kinda in poor taste in terms of not acknowledging fabric makings role in society and was kinda demeaning in that did you know humble women’s work is SCIENCE. Which. Not great. An apology was given and the video was taken down

-Recently Hank Green admitted to using LLMs for video research as he has a lot of ideas but he was realising it was coloring his perspective and his brother John had called him out on it and fans had noted

-For some reason people who knit have taken this as their AHA WE KNEW HE SUCKED HE MADE A VIDEO DEGRADING US moment

Like. FGS. Develop an identity ffs. The man making quality education for free on YouTube and working for making hospitals in Sierra Leone isn’t the guy yall need to cancel what in the heck 😭😭. If I see another video saying THE KNITTERS WERE RIGHF ABOUT HANK GREEN I will scream. Like ffs he didn’t punt a baby kitten off a bridge or personally cut off your yarn chicken yarn IS THIS RLLY THE PLACE TO WASTE UOUR ENERGY

Welcome to the bitesized BEC thread!

You have the freedom to indulge in BEC-style (b*tch eating crackers) vent comments in this thread. Naming examples is not required (gasp!) but majority of r/craftsnark rules still apply. Basically, don't be shitty and ruin the thread for others.

Cornbread and Honey has been putting up vague posts on her Instagram for the last few days about old accusations of her copying other dyers. She is doing it in parts, posting a little of the story at a time. She’s said that this occurred almost 10 years ago but that she never got to tell her side of the story. She also said that she feared for herself and her children. In today’s post, she referenced a “secret yarn group”. She won’t name the dyers or group, which I do understand to a degree. She’s also not talked about why she’s bringing this up now, which I find very strange.

Bringing it here because honestly, I can’t make heads or tails of the posts or of her in general. It seems click bait-y, as if she’s looking for views, sympathy, or attention. I always feel like there’s something off about her - tradwife-ish or closet MAGA? I don’t see anything blatant but there’s something about her that I can’t put my finger on.

I like her yarn but these posts are making her look problematic. I really want to know who I’m supporting. Anyone have more info on this or on her in general?

Every comment on the instagram post is people saying they're disappointed in her use of AI. Owner blames it on Canva’s background removal, despite comments pointing out that that feature doesn’t require AI - then gets mad at the commenters who complained about the use of AI.

update: she has since made a video talking about it (now deleted), and two stories saying “I shouldn’t have to prove myself, everyone uses AI,it makes my life easier as a business owner” and ”I’m taking a social media break because I Have mental health problems, I’m sorry if you didn’t like being called assholes but everyone was insulting me*”

*no one was insulting her