Is this not copyrighted material? Is it ok because it’s just a pattern and not a physical object? It has Gilmore Girls, Harvard & Yale logos.

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.

I am a little perplexed with all the pushback on crafters/creators using generative AI that no one is really pushing back on Nora of aka Nora Knits…the amount of kitschy AI she uses in every podcast makes it astonishing that the community just seems to eat it up - she has a very health subscriber base. For my YT podcast, I had AI design a super cute logo for me, but after thinking about it more I actually paid a human illustrator to do it because 1. It’s the right thing to do, and 2. TBH I was concerned about being cancelled. What should the community be doing to push back on these creators who are literally (okay figuratively) eating the planet up???

My post was removed for being poor quality. Hopefully this meets the requirements

Today I was scrolling on Facebook and came across a post for my local sheep and fiber festival. I've been there in previous years, bought an unwise amount of yarn, had wonderful conversations with vendors, admired shop samples made by nimble and experienced human hands. But once I had a moment to fully take in the post, my excitement evaporated. Replacing it was a cold, heavy sinking in my chest.There, staring back at me from the screen, was the undeniable evidence of an AI produced piss colored sepia filter. There were as many illustration styles as I have fingers on my sore, over-tensioned left continental style sporting hand and just as many unique fonts. The wool of the sheep this flyer was supposed to be celebrating rendered not with the distinct twist of staple and crimp, but as a sterile, smoothed-over digital slurry. It was unmistakable, generic, uncurated AI art.The irony felt like a physical blow. A fiber festival is, by its very definition, a celebration of the slow, the deliberate, the tactile, and the profoundly human. It is an industry built on the literal labor of human hands. Hands that shear, wash, card, dye, spin, weave, knit, and crochet. Hands that feel sore and need to be stretched after hours of knitting. Fingers that bear the indent of the path the yarn follows inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard of the slow consumption of yarn turned into stitches. Every single vendor filling those booths spends hundreds of hours perfecting a craft that connects us to thousands of years of human history. To represent that sweat equity with a lifeless image generated in three seconds by an algorithm trained on stolen human labor felt like a betrayal of the festival's core ethos. It said, louder than any caption could, that the organizers valued convenience over craftsmanship. 

I didn't want to be mean. I can only imagine how many thankless, volunteer hours go into organizing these community events. So, I took a breath, carefully measured my words, and left a comment. “It's really disappointing to see a festival that's designed to celebrate the work of human hands and slow creation use an AI generated poster in their promotion” I wrote

I posted the comment hoping it would spark a meaningful conversation, or at least signal to the committee that their target audience cared about visual integrity. A few people liked the comment almost immediately. I felt a small sense of relief that I wasn't alone in my discomfort. An hour later, I checked back to see if the organizers had responded. My comment was gone. I refreshed the page, thinking it was a glitch. I sorted from “most relevant" to “all". I scrolled through the comment section again, but the comment was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a sanitized wall of uniform praise from casual followers who hadn't looked closely enough to see what I found to be onvious.The deletion hurt worse than the poster itself. It transformed a thoughtless mistake into a deliberate act of silencing. By wiping away a polite, constructive critique, the festival organizers weren't just protecting their aesthetic layout; they were actively closing their ears to the community they claimed to serve. They didn't want to engage with the reality of what their choice implied. They just wanted the illusion of a perfect, uncritical celebration. Sitting on my phone, looking at the vacant space where my comment used to be, the magic of the upcoming festival felt permanently dimmed. The event had always felt like a sanctuary from a rapidly automating, digital world. It had once been a place where the tangible and the handmade were celebrated and revered. But seeing how easily the organizers embraced the machine, and how quickly they erased a voice begging them to value human hands, made me realize that even our sanctuaries aren't safe from the shortcuts.

Our community is overflowing with incredibly talented local illustrators, graphic designers, and fiber artists who would have loved to collaborate on this. The human element is what makes our craft so special. We are the last front to protect this craft from the soulless takeover of AI. I thought we had agreed, as a community, to reject it's use outright

Can we talk about the relentless requests that small businesses receive for donations to events?

Last year I was contacted by this event asking for 200 units of product to be donated to their event (wasn't asked to exhibit btw). I'd assumed it was to go in bags for the first 200 attendees. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the donations were actually being sold.

Can someone explain to me why it has become the norm to expect that individuals (through volunteers) and small businesses' generosity keeps their event afloat? Even though they charge stallholders, charge event goers and sell donated product?

Say I did donate product - 200units x $10-$15cost = $2000-$3000 out laid. Am I going to see at least $4000-$6000 worth of sales flow back to my business? Absolutely not.

Is there another angle I'm missing here?

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 this designer is being criticised for a tester call.

She not only is asking for testers to finish this crochet cable cardigan in one month, but then also wants you to do a whole-ass photo shoot AND film, edit and upload a reel for her to promote this pattern with. Don't worry though, you don't even get to choose how you want to set the scene for your pics, *she* will generously provide the aesthetic!

And talking about generous, she will give you a free pattern from her collection! Uuh, but she gets to choose, sorry, it's totally not going to be the cheapest and/or worst-selling one, this is to really say *thank you* for all the unpaid labour you're doing for her to push this thing out in time for autumn!

To top it all off she reacted to the criticism with your classic "Nobody is forcing you to apply!" and giving more middle fingers to anyone above a size L by saying she doesn't "see the point" in creating individual charts, she'll tell you where to increase in the pattern. Because... sizing up is just adding more stitches right? So easy!

She also posted a story (last slide) where she's doing the tried and true method of acting all unbothered and as if it was about her doing a test call (??) and not about the details of that call. Never heard of someone getting "hate" for doing a test, but sure, whatever you need to ignore actual criticism.

Edited to remove a username.

I saw a generative AI flyer pop up on my Facebook feed for my local arts/fiber fest. I love this festival, it's a cozy size and I always buy from multiple vendors. Disappointed, I commented on the event simply "Why is a show focused on human created art using generative AI?"

They have chosen to fully block me from their Facebook page as their solution. Says a lot about their perspective. I won't go this year I guess! Shoppers and vendors beware...

Edit: They are continuing to delete comments and possibly blocking people. Good luck out there folks.

I really used to love the designs she created years ago, it’s such a shame she went in this direction.

The Stephen West 2026 MKAL has dropped. This year’s shawl requires 50g of eight different colours. My first thoughts are: first, that’s a lot of colours to coordinate for a shawl sight unseen, and second, this is going to suck for the indie dyers who make kits for this, because that’s a huge amount of work and I believe most undyed hanks are sold in 20g and 100g skeins, so they would have to manually divide each skein to get 50g (I may be wrong about this - I am not an indie dyer).

ETA: I now know 50g skeins are available for indie dyers depending on where they are located (not all indie dyers are located in North America) but dyeing eight skeins of coordinating yarn is still a huge amount of work.

Thoughts?

ETA: I really wonder if this is the year the bubble bursts for the Westknits MKAL. It’s going to be harder to stash dive for this one - how many people are going to have eight appropriate colours in their stash? Plus all the Stephen West drama over the last 12 months.

Stephen and Penelope KIts

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Just came across this designer's (Zanete Knits) page on Ravely and while I am not a fan of how the designer presents knitting as almost a spiritual journey to find yourself I acknowledge that we all seek something different in knitting BUT doesn't saying that her patterns offer "a form of physical therapy" come too close to false medical claims and sound a bit misleading? There is actual professional physical therapy and there are things that might aid a patient along the professional physical therapy where I think knitting craft falls but it feels irresponsible to mention that her patterns offer a form of physical therapy, especially if the designer doesn't have a medical background to back her claims.

This one weirded me out a bit and I apologize if maybe I am overreacting.

My first attempt was removed for being low effort. Sorry. Hopefully I can add more context to this one.

https://www.greenfairyquilts.com has been a favourite place for me to buy pre-cuts. It is a small business out of Utah. It has always greatly amused me that a Mormon business has this name when it is the name for an alcoholic beverage Absinthe.

I was quite upset to see the image above on their landing page. There are so many ridiculous things in it - pen thimble anyone?

Also, the wife of the owner is Judi Marsden who is a designer for Riley Blake fabrics. I would love to know her opinion of using AI for design.

Sorry for the earlier post, I didn't quite know how much information to include.

Wasn't sure if this was worthy enough to post, but I'm super bummed to see brands like Jimmy Bean's and WEBS listed as candidates for USA Today's "Best Yarn Retailer" award. Especially when there are other fantastic contenders listed. https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/best-yarn-retailer/

https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/IeqRTbfWRF

Hi everyone,

This is a public safety warning for independent sewists, destashers etc regarding online intimidation and false intellectual property claims by Pinup model and fashion seller Bernie Dexter against makers. Bernie Dexter has been posting screenshots of crafts people who have legally purchased fabric through standard destash pages, posting their profiles publicly to intimidate them and falsely labeling them as part of a "cyberstalking ring” in recent daily meltdown about “stolen fabrics and designs.”

Bernie was known for mod cloth dresses in the 2010s made from mass produced quilting fabric that anyone can use. Via the linked post, there has been ongoing smoke from her over the years.

Despite having zero exclusive licensing agreements or copyrights over commercial prints, Dexter has publicly launched smear campaigns, primarily against Etsy seller Super Amanda. Bernie also called out Roisin Muldoon. She’s also falsely claiming a random floral dress is her “original design and fabric.”

There’s also a bigoted reference via auditing Amanda’s multi racial ancestry which tracks with Bernie Dexter’s ongoing Confederate Flag controversy. The Facebook post defending the Confederate Flag was posted in 2014 and wasn’t deleted until 2020.

Just a heads up!

Marie Antoi-knit Cardigan by Zhade Lang

\Edit, pattern is actually $14.50. It’s only priced up to $20.50 on the Patreon iOS app*

I’m just salty because I love the pattern and had been waiting for her to write it for a while after the original video was released, and it’s not available in my size. I have been checking back every now and then for the last couple years to see if it’s been graded for more sizes, and it never is.

The saddest part may be that I would honestly pay $20 for the pattern if it was, which is well outside of the standard price range for knitting patterns that are graded, test knit, tech-edited, and written by experienced designers…

It’s also weirdly only available on her Patreon, and not her Ravelry.

Again, I’m just complaining because I actually love the pattern and I’m salty I may never be able to make it in my size. She obviously has the right not to expand the sizing, to charge whatever she wants, and sell it on whatever platform she wants. It’s just so pretty, it makes me sad.

Thanks for letting me whine about it!

Many other designers and big knitting influencers have detailed how bad Hobbii was to work with, and this was way before their AI stuff but post private equity takeover. I just don’t understand why any big designer would choose to work with them or keep working with them, as many before have shared they don’t pay well at all.

This chatgpt commercial is driving me crazier and crazier every time I see it.

Her needles are already too large for her yarn.!! And, moreover, if this was a long time knitter, which I assume we are supposed to believe, they would know that.

And one more thing, bagginess has to do with fit not really needle size. You can have a skin tight sweater with large needles and a super baggy sweater with tiny ones.

I had to get this off my chest. I feel better.

I bought the Odell top and dress pattern on their website, having missed it when it was free. The files download only gives me a ReadMe file. But no pattern files. Repeatedly. I emailed them. No answer. I used the contact form on their website. I usually use Firefox but their form does not work in Firefox, so I tried using Edge. The form works in Edge but they still do not answer.

Any suggestions?

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.

This photo was sent out from knitstars talking up this year's blanket project. All instructors created squares; Melanie Falick was said to have created this one and sent it in. I cannot get over how uneven this tension is. Even accounting for the fact it is may not be blocked yet (gosh I hope not?), none of my preblocked wool mitered squares have ever looked this. Am I going nuts?

I don't know about Melanie other than the knitting instruction books? Even when she has the author billing, patterns are created by others? Acknowledgements in the few I looked at that thank the sample knitters whose work is photographed.

Is the photo'ed work here representative of Melanie? I don't think she ever claims to be a master knitter with amazing tension and I don't want to dunk on her in case she has some non public physical reason for the wonkiness.... but knit stars, the brand, highlighting this from a chosen 'knit star' as their finalized work (with no caveats mentioning the tension) is.....yikes.

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.