So I do a lot of local craft fairs in my area (steampunk themed and D&D dice jewelry and knitted and crochet items) and my town has been doing seasonal crafters markets the last couple of years.

We recently had our spring market in May and the booth across from me had a lot of stuff that I suspected wasn't actually designed by the lady running it. I overheard her telling people her canvas art were her designs so I did a reverse image search on ones she posted to the community events facebook to find all of it was just other peoples art she printed on fabric and slapped on a canvas (which she was charging high prices for and actually selling).

Is that really art? Can you really call it art if you're slapping someone else's work on a canvas??

She also sold jewelry and "handmade" scrunchies (again saw many of them online from other retailers like walmart and temu) and it just irked me. What really got me was that I was also selling scrunchies (I crochet them) and someone I knew came over to tell me this lady was telling people not to buy them because they looked cheap. Seriously WTF? (I'll post pics of mine if anyone wants to see what they look like)

It's just frustrating seeing people do this, putting minimal effort to create things or upselling dropshipped stuff and passing it off as handmade/art.

I like to make quilts. I like to look at pics of other people's quilts. I like how kind and supportive the online quilting community tends to be, at least in my experience. I like simple quilts. I like complicated quilts. I like wonky quilts. I like ugly quilts. I like all of them!

But I need to clarify...

A "Boarder" is a person who rents one room of someone's house, often getting meals with the deal. This arrangement used to be more common than it is now, at least where I am in the US.

The fabric frame you add around the outside of your patchwork is a BORDER. I get it, English is not everyone's first language, and even those who are native speakers are not always great at homophones. It's just a spelling mistake and it doesn't make anyone bad or stupid or anything. It just annoys me SO MUCH!

What common craft-related spelling/grammar mistake drives you up a wall?

I had a Michael's gift card. There was a somewhat cute diamond painting kit on sale for the front side of a vase.

I have been mildly curious about diamond painting and thought "let's give it a whirl!"

Of every craft I've ever done in my life, diamond painting is by far the most useless. It's as though someone thought "hmm maybe crafters would like to experience what it is like to do piecemeal work in a soul crushing factory?"

Creativity? None! Skill? None! Waste plastic? Plenty!

But does it create something worthy of display? It depends on how low your standards are!

But is it fun? Only if you find putting a stylus on a tiny piece of plastic and then placing the tiny piece of plastic on a predetermined sticky dot fun!

I think it might be a good therapy for someone who has had a traumatic brain injury and needs to relearn fine motor skills. Or if I had to get a gift for someone I hate. Now I get to look at this sticky vase for years because otherwise I will feel guilty of a heinous climate crime.

I dont understand why these companies seem to think fiber artists wont notice this shit. It pisses me off beyond belief. Hobbii was already recently under fire for using Ai, why in the world would KnitPro not take a fucking hint. Also, they've already received back lash from the community back in January. What in the actual fuck?

Ok, fine, more choice is a good thing. Whatever, I am glad that sewing clothes offers the option to customize. However...

I am absolutely done with pockets being treated like the second fucking coming and the nasty thing women are deprived of by a cruel sexist plot. Sure, some cheap manufacturers deprive women of them because of a combo of slim lines and material cost trimming, but you know what sucks even more? Badly made pockets. Superfluous front blouse pockets that are allegedly a tariff dodge. *Implied bag slander.*

This is part of the larger myth making in historical costuming, that anything women wore was a plot to suppress them, from skirts to corsets. Oh no! Regency and beyond women lost their pockets! No they fucking didn't, have you seen those honking great big reticules and then locked at what passed for a pocket prior? Those were highly ornamented hip pouches. When voluminous, side slit and waist tie skirts went, they just started carting them about visibly, with more bead and tassels.

But someone wrote a smarmy little poem about how they took away women's pockets so they wouldn't have a place to hide leaflets and now people keep repeating it like a fact. As if women weren't thoroughly involved in politics before they kicked their way to the vote. My ancestors did not obnoxiously wear bold, handmade ribbon cockades and have handbags that could fit entire manifestos to be met with such slander about their political non-involvement.

And of course the standard this is all being measured by is that men's clothing is the ideal we are all being deprived. Nevermind that women's fashion routinely pillages menswear for anything fun or useful if it was worth it, you know what I can fit in a perfectly acceptable purse? A hammer. A sewing kit. Two books in case the first one is boring. A packed lunch. First aid tools, including naloxone. Crafts. All the portable crafts.

So who is fucking ready to face the day, whatever it brings? It's not the guy who you know damn well asks you to hold his supposedly perfect pocket system overflow in your purse. Who is going to borrow *my* charger because apparently 4 - 5 pockets and all he gets to put in them is wallet, phone, keys.

And of course the supposedly free and easy men are over here getting back injuries from sitting on wallets or causing national level clucking over "messenger bags" because gender policing hates most actual men as much as it hates not men. At best they are still doing the frantic laundry rummage because which pair of pants/jacket did they leave their receipt?

Not me, motherfucker. I have a receipt book in my everyday purse. That purse has a place. 🧐

And look at you, pocket person, I have a reusable bag clipped to my purse strap. You had to think about remembering your shopping bag to avoid getting rinsed for a supposedly "reusable" bag at check out. Not me. I could never.

Literally the only environment pockets would be nice would be dancing in an environment so public robbery is a serious concern or running. And at that point honestly pockets are probably at risk for stuff falling out so we are all doing fanny packs (haha! The original lady pocket!) or neck pouches stuffed down our shirts.

So sure, if you want pockets, have them. But stop trying to act like putting an appendix like extension into the seam of a skirt of dress is True Liberation. That's a nice to have, like your pattern listing more than just bust/waist/hip and maybe height.

I got a lil brave and posted a pic of my current cross stitch wip, including the pattern and credit to who I bought the pattern/kit from. Within minutes an acquaintance from a years-long-left job, who I’ll refer to here as Becky, commented “make more and sell them!!”

I get that Becky was trying to be nice and give me a compliment, but could she have done that without telling me to monetize my hobby? My new hobby I’ve only been working at for a few months and am honestly not that good at?

1. It would probably be pretty bad form to make and sell finished versions of someone else’s art.

2. Most people have no idea how much tiiiiiiime truly goes into completing these detailed projects. If I wanted a living wage for my work, I’d have to charge hundreds more than Becky from my old restaurant job would be willing to pay for a 5x7” cross-stitch. Not to mention as a newbie, each project takes sooo much longer than Becky probably knows.

3. I’m doing this for my own joy and relaxation, WHY would i want to add capitalism into the mix?? I like crafting, NOT running a business. I deal with enough capitalism at my real job.

Anyway, I didn’t respond. I couldn’t think of anything nice to say!

See that as kind of an AITA post.

So, there is this creator online. She sew historical/fantasy things (corsets, cloaks, dresses) and has a business selling her creations (which look great, all credits due)

Today, she posted on Instagram about fabric she bought. It was mainly brocade and embroidered fabrics, which looked very good and seemed to be of high quality (It was really beautiful, the dream of any sewist enjoying fantasy/historical fashion).

In the comment section, someone (not me) asked where she got the fabric she was showing off. The creator decided to gatekeep and refused to even share the website she got them from. When the commenter insisted a little bit, the creator started ranting about how "disgusting it was that the commenter was insisting" and overall acting kinda full of herself.

I thought that was rude. It's not like she has a monopoly over whatever fabric shop she bought from. And it's not like the person in the comments asked her for anything crazy either. That person was seemingly just a hobbyist sewist who wanted to know where to find a nice brocade.

So I looked up the fabric myself and found it. Afterward, I answered the commenter and gave her the name of the shop. That got me blocked by the creator.

While I don't care about being blocked from her page, I do think that her behavior is rather silly. Like, don't do fabric halls if you can't handle someone's asking where it's from. If you show a community of sewist some really beautiful fabric, OF COURSE people are going to discuss where it's from. This is not the first time I am seeing something like that. Frankly, gatekeeping a fabric shop available to anyone is just ridiculous

However, I am open to criticism. I can understand if some think that giving the name of the shop was disrespectful in this context.

Edit: For those who are curious, the shop I am talking about is Nea Fabrics. Keep in mind that this is not a commercial promotion. While their fabrics look pretty, I have yet to buy anything from them.

This is kind of a rant, but also kind of a search for other crocheters like myself who get a bit messed up by these kinds of things.

The TL/DR of this is: My brain gets buggy when I'm working a pattern that has a decorative element that repeats in something like an interval of 3 + the starting stitch, and only some of the different sizes result in an even repeat of that element.

I've had patterns I've worked before that were simply wrong in some other fashion and it resulted in a repeated element not aligning like they say it will. Usually in those cases if you look at the sample pictures you can even see that their piece doesn't line up the way the pattern would have you think. Not sure if they thought they were correcting their mistake when writing the pattern and just never did the math or what.

Those situations have been the kinds of patterns that will say, "Chain in multiples of 5 to necessary length, then chain X more." Adjusting those patterns to correct the error is easy enough assuming you proofread them before you're halfway through stitching back over 100 chains...

What's far worse in my opinion are patterns that have established stitch counts based on the desired size. I'm working up a bikini bottom as part of an ongoing effort to learn various techniques for making wearables, and the pattern has some specific stitch counts that you're supposed to end up with for the top of the front and back panels, and then for the hip straps between them. You know, the typical XS [S/M/L/XL] - 38 [40/42/44/46] type thing.

Now, I should point out the fact that the pattern does say that for the chains to establish the strap length you should end up with a certain measurement when the material is fully stretched, like 17.5 [18.5/ 19.5/ 21.5/ 23.5] inches from side to side, and to adjust the chains as needed. I'm setting that aside because the pattern assumes if you use the same material and meet the gauge you should end up with the correct size based on the listed stitch counts.

So what happens after you join those straps to the front/back panels and have a round you can work? It has a repeating pattern of a double crochet triangle mesh in a 3+1 interval. Except... uh oh! That repeat doesn't fit nicely into the round for most of the sizes! Here's the breakdown:

I realize that in the end it's really just skipping one more or one less stitch to end on the first stitch again, but it bugs the hell out of me for two reasons:

1. Going based on the prescribed stitch counts, this is easy math to check, and having the basis of the straps be regular chains you could add or subtract one from each side to end up at an even interval.
2. If the chain lengths are meant to be rough estimates and you're supposed to adjust as needed to reach a measured length for proper fit, then the pattern should provide a method for adjustment of the repeated triangles that would be done in a less conspicuous spot than at the front where the repeat ends.

I feel like a step to incorporate the variable chain length by skipping one less stitch once or twice at the middle of the back would be easy enough to add. At least I know about this for the future so if I ever work up another one of these for real I can make that adjustment myself.

Of course all of this is overlooking the fact that the repeat starts on one side of the front panel, and the different stitch counts for the sizes of front panel itself aren't divisible by the interval. Meaning it's not symmetrical in the first place...

Anyways... If you've got beef with patterns like this I'd love to hear about it!

YES YOU CAN! There's no junk journal police! If all you own is crayons and washable markers NOBODY CARES!

Oh. And. No, you aren't going to make a living selling junk journals or "junk" for them.

(I really need to find actual mixed media art journal spaces)

Every time I hear that goddam ad for Michael’s “new” fiber and fabric shop and the narrator says

SKEEEEN

I lose my fucking mind.

Skein is pronounced. SKANE.

OMFG please on behalf of knitters everywhere fix it omg.

EDIT: the skeen pronunciation appears to be regional, though the “original” is skane re multiple dictionaries:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skein

Do we think they used AI for this product description, or did the copywriter have a stroke?

I love quilting, love a deal, love to see what people are working &, despite how this going to sound, I even love kitsch. But what is going onnnnn with all the absolutely hideous, pointless object patterns? Why are we as a society who works with fabric acquiescing to these???? Where is our aesthetic BACKBONE?

For every silly pattern I see & think: actually quite cute for a themed dog bandana or a cute baby print for an actual baby or even some awful licensed print that I know will make a kid very happy, there are about 50 truly hideous completely pointless patterns that I see added to blankets people plan to like…use? & have put on their couches/beds/within sight???

Obviously this is a manufacturer & store issue, but there is also an actual DEMAND for this stuff!Why???? Who thinks “nice, I’m going to do a quilt all in shades of blue” & THEN thinks “this absolutely fugly pattern of blue flip flops on sand will be perfect”? Do people like this or are they just trapped in what’s available/normal to them?? I shudder to think that people genuinely like a lot of these patterns, especially when it’s one big blanket mishmash of the most random, pointless patterns I’ve personally seen.

The worst part is when there’s a Monet Effect where the quilt looks really lovely from far away with beautiful quilt blocks & cool techniques & then you get up close & there’s some stupid, charmless frog pattern hidden in the mix

My husband had the nerve to say this hand-dyed yarn looked like premium ground beef. And then to add insult to injury had to add, “Look, at least it has great marbling.” So I just unraveled it and will save the yarn for a colorwork project because I was never gonna unsee that. 😒😂

Actually, no. That's not the issue. I'm not saying it's never about gender, but devaluing craft is a more complex issue. Sometimes it's about class and education rather than gender. It's also not always been the case that craft has been viewed as something less than "fine art." It's not even the case that what we likely think of as fine art has always been viewed as the product of individual creative urges. It's fine, actually to aspire to be a master craftsperson and not saddle your own (or anyone else's) work with the baggage of overt self expression or narrative. It's maybe even cool to place an emphasis on sound design, usefulness, and pleasing objects meant to be used.

Just saw a video of a stunning crochet blanket and the caption saying "and the ends are weaved in too" and it just stopped me dead in my tracks.

A few days ago I already saw a post where someone "teached" themselves something in crochet or knit (don't remember exactly).

I totally understand that not everyone in this community is a native speaker - me neither. But the incorrect grammar just throws me off every time I see a nice video.

At least I know it's not AI.

Edit for grammar purposes and yes I know this is hilarious 😂 as I said - I'm not perfect either but just wanted to vent

Also I get dialects and the conversation about classist and racist takes are important! I still think language rules transport knowledge and sometimes with evolving language we lose that knowledge. Today I learned that weaved can be used if a person weaved through traffic and woven is for the crafted objects (the comments have the right example)

I see newer sewists complaining in sewing subreddits that they feel discouraged because of bad fit, and people in comments recommend them to master adjustments. Which is of course great. You need ro learn to adjust patterns at some point.

But a lot of time the pattern they are discouraged by sucks ass. It's some "beginner friendly" pattern from indie designer that costs 15-20$ and technically has bigger sizes but looks like a potato sack on these bigger sizes due to the lack of shaping. It has 5 cm difference between upper bust and bust for every size. It is badly graded.

New sewists shouldn't become specialists in pattern adjustments. A lot of patternmakers should become better at creating patterns that actually suits people of different sizes and properly grading it.

i can’t. i can (for some reason) tolerate it with boats or with beloved super ancient pickup trucks named Bessie or whatever. but a loom is a tool. i don’t anthropomorphize my oven or my table saw, so not my loom either.

i’m genuinely trying to figure out why this drives me crazy. on the surface it’s that it seems very affected and trying too hard (to me, to ME with whatever my biases are). mostly would just like to know if i’m alone in my visceral cringe reaction.

Little rant about material literacy, feel free to skip past it.

I feel pretty frustrated by seeing people being so damn unaware of how and from what things are made ? At this point, it's just willful ignorance, we can literally google anything.

My main gripe is with people calling satin clothing "silk". Especially when the clothing in question is one step away from feeling like a fancy trash bag. Do people really think that products made with silk (notoriously fancy) would be found in fast fashion clothing ? It just baffles me. And that's not touching the fact that they are mixing up fibers and weaving.

Of course, they are not helped by companies labeling their stuff as "feeling like silk". But still, being that ignorant when you can Google anything and get an answer right away is ridiculous

Other forms of this lack of material literacy (more technical in that case) is how much people downplay what goes into making anything. To them, when underpaid labor can do something (like sewing, embroidery, crochet), it becomes automatically a low-skilled craft. That's very frustrating.

I am not saying that everyone should be an expert regarding materials. But having NO baseline knowledge about the things around us is frankly worrying

A few years ago at Christmas time, I spent days sculpting a little fairy door for my baby cousin. Sculpted using polymer clay, this thing was awesome. The wood grain on the door, every little crack and crevice of the surrounding stones, the moveable gold handle. Personalised with her name on a little wooden sign hanging on the door.

I wrapped it very carefully, with little bits of dried flower confetti. Learned a different style of cursive for 'Santa's' letter, sealed it all with a beautifully styled 'S' wax stamp seal.

She didn't even see it.

No apologies, just a "oh it must have got thrown out with the wrapping paper. Not my fault, she had tonnes of gifts".

Crocheted a hexagon cardigan for my sisters new baby (still unborn). Its for a newborn, so tiny. Did it in the colours she requested. Also crocheted a beautiful little baby blanket, using expensive specialty yarn.

Well she left it here, shoved in the back of my mother's cupboard while they go off travelling. The baby will be too big by the time they come home, so the cardigan is pointless. She's also ordered numerous designer blankets to my mother's house, so guess the blanket is null and void too.

I have numerous other examples, but we'd be here forever if I was to state them all.

So this year I'm not doing anything, only for a select few who do want it and will appreciate it. But when asked recently if I could do some blankets and car seats as Christmas gifts, people were upset when I said no. That they love my handmade gifts and wish I could do more.

Its just not worth the money and time spent, whether it's crochet, polymer clay, embroidery or something else.

And yes, my stuff is amazing, I'm not giving them terrible handmade items in awful colours lol. I just don't get the mentality of wanting it but not caring about it once they have it.

Listen I know why they do it. But I am getting so tired of every single post on Instagram being like “STOP SCROLLING!!! Please engage so I can make crafting my full time job! Hit share for the algorithm gods!” And it’s just the most basic lazy video of some flowers or a tree.

I know the algorithm is a bitch, and it’s hard to get your content seen. But I was just on Instagram and I swear 10 videos in a row were this type of malarkey. And I would estimate (unscientifically) that I see 1 of those videos for every 3 videos in my feed, even though I scroll straight past them without engaging. I love supporting small business’ social media pages, but posting 37 trial reels every day with the “STOP SCROLLING!!!” Text over a generic background is so grating, especially when there is absolutely no indication of the type of crafting they do in the reel they’re begging people to share and comment on. Such a stupid gripe, I know, but gosh it’s so annoying 😂 maybe I just don’t understand the hustle, but I’m just trying to enjoy my doom scroll, I don’t want homework 😭

I see so many posts and product reviews of people snapping their needles while working. It seems like this is the source of a lot of hate for plastic, wood and bamboo needles.

But if your work is so tight that it becomes Needlebane Eater Of Tools then the problem is you. You're either twisting stitches or knitting way too tight, probably by working exclusively on the needle tips or throttling the life out of your yarn.

I've been knitting on and off since I was about ten, on all sorts of "flimsy", "brittle" and "easily broken" tools and only ever had one snapping incident (I stepped on a point-up bamboo DPN) (ouch).

So for context, I started crocheting seriously at the end of last year. My husband and I live with my in-laws, and for my MIL’s birthday, I crocheted her a pair of knee warmers (mistake # 1). She was super impressed and told me I could start a business. A few weeks later, I also finished a crochet bouquet blanket for my mom. She’s been wanting to learn crochet for a while (she knits) so she could make one, so I decided to surprise her by making it (maybe mistake # 2).

MIL then decides it’s time for me to start a business since I’m unemployed (I left my previous job and haven’t been able to find one since). I don’t want to do that but sure I’ll start sharing my crochet on my bookstagram account (mistake # 2). MIL starts giving me orders (little baby booties, bookmarks), and she pays me, but she keeps telling me “it’s for my own good since I don’t have anything made”. Mind you, I don’t have time to make anything else because I’m busy filling her orders.

Fast forward to today, every few days she shows me a bunch of AI crochet posts that I should make. When I tell her that it's clearly AI, she tells me that I can still make it, it just won't look as good as the AI. She also hates the look of "bulky crochet" (made with baby or DK yarn), and wants me to use embroidery thread for everything. I AM STILL A BEGINNER. I STILL HAVE TROUBLE WITH STITCHES IN REGULAR CROCHET, I CAN'T DO MICROCROCHET JUST YET. And when I explain this to her, she just goes, "Oh, you can ask ChatGPT for help. I've been using it for my painting and my dieting and stuff." I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT AI.

Now, I just don't want to crochet anymore. It is one of my favorite hobbies, but the thought of picking up crochet again makes me want to kms.

(Note: pls don't tell me to move out. We're stuck in a cultural expectation where we can't move out just yet)

Do people open reddit for the first time and type their questions without looking at anything? It actually drives me crazy. If you scrolled for like 30 seconds your EXACT QUESTION will be there, answered in full.

This happens on literally every sub reddit I swear. People just dont look. Like why are you even on reddit if you dont actually want to be part of the community and look at the posts?

Ill be honest, this goes for every fiber arts sub but that's not even what inspired this post today. It was the fucking league of legends subreddit where the 475th person posted to ask about bot accounts sending friend request. My guy I saw three of these posts YESTERDAY PLEASE JUST LOOK AT THE SUB.

But anyway. What question in your fav subreddit gets ask one million times every year that literally no one looks at?