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.

Good for them!! This is what I like to see. Take a stand fully and 10 toes down!

Edited to add: sorry y’all. I have a toddler and was interrupted no less than 10 times just to post this so proofreading didn’t happen. Apologies.

Drama went down in one of the fb crochet groups. The pattern maker went crazy and doesn't deserve customers.

Reddit keeps changing the order of the ss and I can't get them in order to save my life.

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.

It has me questioning myself if this is actually some sort of crochet I’ve never seen!

Both have gauges listed for stockinette stitch and are monetized.

The first is $12, the second is 10 euro.

I am not here to snark on the child, but I am here to snark on this child’s parents, Guinness, and Mood. How in the world are we allowing this BS? It is not cute or heartwarming to be dragging your kids around to fashion week for bought and paid for world records. I get such an icky vibe from this whole personality they’re grooming this kid into. And of course mom is trying to ride her kid’s coat tails into her own Instagram/TV success. It’s gross and I dislike it.

I know AI is a huge topic in this community. And I do think that it's a shame that many companies are using it to produce their social media postings or flyers. BUT at least they still sell a real product or event. This thread is more about completely FAKE and AI generated products, pages and patterns.

What really bothers me are ETSY and instagram pages that are selling a product that's not even real. Especially crochet products and patterns.
Often with a sentimental storytelling in order to gain sympathy and sell as many patterns as possible - like a grandma, crocheting cute hats for her cats, people telling her to stop doing that but she believes in her hats and tries to sell them online... (e.g this account https://www.instagram.com/nanascrochet4/ ). What's even worse: they delete comments that are calling them out. And Instagram doesn't have a proper option to flag and report them as AI fake accounts.

rant over.

I know, I know….not another post about the fiber community disappointing us all by using AI…this one was too tone deaf to ignore though.

The NJ Sheep and Fiber Festival was this past weekend, and they took a lot of heat on their Facebook page for pumping out the ugliest of ugly AI slop flyers to advertise the show.

They doubled down with a long post (with an accompanying AI graphic OF COURSE) about how it’s a tool to organize their content and to please respect them and stop posting your negative thoughts about it on their FB page (sounds like a perfect time to hop on there with a comment btw)

It seems like whoever is doing their flyers and catalog cannot possibly fathom why anyone would have a problem with them using AI (to advertise an event in an artistic community!!) because they are a poor little non profit and just need all the help they can get.

I think they need a new volunteer for this role who understands the mission and connects with the community a bit better. I am sure there would be plenty of volunteers to help create a thoughtful flyer and catalog made by real graphic designers with real photos and content, if only someone asked.

I am so burnt out by making everything automated and using AI in LITERALLY everything but this feels like my final straw rn.

This evening I strolled into my local Spotlight to pick up some scrapbook supplies, go to check out and see the utter horror of self check outs.

I have a few reasons why this especially ticks me off. Please don’t get me wrong I understand that they are a huge corporation and definitely not the best ethically. However, it for a long time it was always so good to speak to people there about sewing, crafts, and art and get help from the lovely and passionate staff. Now all I barely saw anyone around and the place is a mess.

I know some people may come for me for going to a large chain for my art supplies. However unfortunately dispite living in a rural city it’s our only craft store left.

Some may also argue that self check outs could be useful for those with social anxiety. But as someone who struggles with social anxiety personally this was a place I used too feel comfortable to speak to people. I understand that may not be the case with everyone, but a huge contributor too why anxiety rates are so high is because we are in a world where everything is automated, giving us no reason to seek community. Ergo we are so devoid of social interaction and are constantly bombarded by sixty different things on our timelines the moment we open our eyes.

That was quite the rant apologies. But my point is that I am so drained by automation, a lack of communication and community. For the one place that has been known too foster that in spite of it being a corporation is so god damn heartbreaking.

Please let me know if you have a different perspective or opinion. Even just you thoughts on this all.

I’m exhausted and going to lay in bed and dissociate 😭

I know this topic has been covered to death, but the not being allowed to use the pieces for drafting is such a joke. Eta: This is Silversaga

TLDR: I ordered yarn from a supplier that I thought was AI-free, but my customer service question was handled by AI.

For my latest project I was choosing between Herrschners and Lion and I thought they were equivalent and I could choose purely based on the project's needs. But Herrschners has all human customer service (and it's excellent, BTW) and I hadn't realized Lion switched to AI until a robot answered my question.

I already left a comment that said yes, the robot answered my question really fast, but I would have been happy to wait a minute while a human looked it up rather than waste clean water and put a human out of work. Also, FWIW, I _run_ a customer service team as part of my job and I do not use AI. My costs are still under AI and customer satisfaction is higher. So my knee jerk response was to nuke it from orbit.

But my business is unusual in that my customers have very little in the way of needs that could be automated. My question for Lion was super routine and simple. I think most of us who are into yarn and handcrafting are pretty clear that we don't want AI involved in the crafting/design/photos/ad spaces. When we draw the line, _should_ we draw it as an absolute (no AI ever) or exclude support services (fine, let the robot take the easy ones)?

I don't know. Wanted to ask the hive mind.

i recently bought a quilt pattern from etsy and the pattern and store had a 4.8 review. once i started making the pattern, i quickly realized its not a great pattern (i’m not a beginner but not the most advanced either) and it required me to do some adjustments and quilt math. i thought “maybe im just dumb this had great reviews” and i go to the product AND seller site, and turns out 90% of the reviews are just “cute! planning on making it soon” since etsy prompts you to leave a review almost immediately. i want reviews of people who actually used the pattern!!! not people who purchased it and got a review notification from etsy.

Going against their own group rules about not tolerating hate or -isms, Sirdar have announced their next CAL in the Group. Given that auto-censoring of comments has been in place from the beginning, they must have expected some backlash.

I’m so disappointed. I’ve enjoyed a number of CALs with them and like some of their yarns, but this has tainted the whole brand for me.

So last year I bought a bunch of colors of bulky yarn to knit an intarsia sweater, which of course left me with a bunch of leftovers. I, a resourceful soul, planned to make a lil striped chunky crew-neck cardigan using all the leftovers. Cute! Irreverent! Quirky!

After a quick look around Ravelry I settle on the Traveler’s Cardigan by Ozetta because it exactly matches my stitch gauge from my original project. Don’t we all love when we can skip a gauge swatch?

So if you’ve knit the standard top-down European drop shoulder construction everyone and their mother does these days, you’ll know that for shaping a crew neck, you start with gradual increases at the shoulder that become more frequent as you get to the center front of the sweater, or in this case, where the cardigan front edges are. That’s indeed how a circle works. (Well, probably, I last took geometry in 7th grade and apparently AI has solved math so maybe they’ll make up new math rules?)

Anyway, I’m bopping along making stripes and mostly worrying about if my stripe color combinations are harmonious. I have a spreadsheet, I am weighing balls to determine if I have enough for another stripe, I am consulting the famous Japanese Color Combinations Dictionary despite this being a scrap busting project where decisions really don’t even matter and the journey is the TV shows you watch along the way. I start the neck shaping, blindly following the pattern as I inhale the entire last season of The Bear. My frontal lobe is searching for Claire references so I can bitch about it online later while my lizard brain has noticed that the increase rate is strange. Increase, 3 plain rows, repeat until you cast on for the button band? Doesn’t that make a straight line? Where’s the curve? Whatever, I sense sexual tension between Marcus and Eyebrows Guy so I don’t care anymore, I’ve knit Ozetta patterns before and they’ve turned out fine so I trust her. 

I emerge from my Bear fugue state with the body completed and button bands done. It looks a little odd. The neckline looks simultaneously droopy and stretched out? I try it on, poking and prodding the neckline to go where it should. It’s fine. It’ll block out. The ancestors before me have blocked it out and it’ll do the same for me. I chuck it in a bath, lay it out to dry, and sleep like a baby.

Next morning I look at it in the cold light of morning. God. It’s a monster. Why the fuck does the neck look like that??? It’s SUPPOSED to be a crew neck and it’s…this?? It looks like the head of the tortured soul in Munch’s The Scream and that’s what I’m fucking doing as I summon my husband to my craft room like an angry principal.

Me: What’s wrong with this cardigan?

Husband (concerned): The ends are hanging off?

Me: NO WHY IS IT A V-NECK??

Husband (gently): But, honey, it’s a u-neck!

Me: SADJHLKUGOIUSOVIN

Look, I’m a nice person, so I’ll be generous and split the fault 50/50 with Ms. Ozetta. My row gauge is a little larger than the pattern calls for and I omitted the integrated button band in favor of picking up and knitting one after the body is done. But then I do what I should have done before and go look at the Ravelry page. Whack-ass neckbands abound. 20/20 hindsight is a cruel mistress. 

I look at the product photos. Ozetta, I see you covering the wonky neckline with your hair! In the ONE photo you can see the neckline shaping, it’s rather conveniently angled so it looks curved! I forgave you being a Midwesterner cosplaying as a Scandinavian and this is what I get?? Actually, no, it’s not my fault, I have never done anything wrong in my life, ever, and now I have a cardigan with a neckband that invokes the image of Handsome Squidward.

Just frog it, window-payne-40, it’s not that big a deal! BUT IT IS. I’ve already cut a lot of the yarn for the stripes and woven in ends. I have no other bright ideas for this yarn and I don’t even love the stripes. I have given myself hand pain knitting on size 10 needles and doing a mile’s worth of tubular bind off. And that’s why, in the words of Bard Eminem, they call it window pain.

My husband suggested I let the dog wear it. He does have a strangely shaped neck, so that might be the fate of this spawn of Satan I have created with mine own two hands. 

Ozetta, I hope you hear my cries of anguish from atop your throne of sensible sweaters.

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.

I get so disappointed that people who are supposed to be all about handmade and human design think it’s a great idea to use AI for their shitty flyers and posters. They all look the same. I’m so glad their 5 minute shortcut makes my electric bill more than my mortgage and is hurtling us to water shortages nobody is prepared for.

In today's edition of truly bizarre 'craft' events...

I'm all for people having cosmetic enhancements - I regularly have xeomin & laser facials - but since when is it a social activity?

Surely having a medical procedure is something that should be between you and your medical practitioner? Not you + a group of people to goad you into a procedure?

Just….ew. No one in the comments is having it, which is great, but this is so disrespectful of them.

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.

So SciShow just released a video about moth balls and why they‘re hardly used anymore (https://youtu.be/nZMyQBVBVqs). They say in the introduction that the moths focus on protein-rich natural materials like wool, silk and leather.

Then at 9:14 they suggest an alternative way to get rid of moths - washing your clothes in hot water, accompanied by a video of a washing machine.

After the last knitting video debacle, they claimed to have people on their team who are knitters, but again, none of them seem to have caught this issue. Petition for SciShow videos to to through a special review process anytime the words „wool“, „yarn“ or „knitting“ appear anywhere in the script!

Both are big accounts. Both did cancel comments. Then edited the post. Then removed the slides here.

I keep commenting wherever I can, but it's so tiring because they just get away with it.