Tis the season of seasonal crafting and people trying their hand at making possibly one of the most dangerous things one could make in their kitchen -- cold process soap. It requires not only the ability to count and use a scale, it also requires knowledge of chemical reactions and PPE. Don't even get me started on the chatGPT 'recipes'.

"I poured my soap batter into a glass dish, how can I get it out?"

"My 4 lb bar of soap only cut into 10 pieces, why?"

"I used cinnamon essential oil, why does my skin burn?"

"I used aluminum foil, what is this highly flammable gas in my kitchen?"

Just, stop it. Put the lye down.

So I crochet and obviously I get a lot of crochet videos on my typ and suggestions, and I constantly see videos of people that crochet and knit that get upset with people for not appreciating gifts that they didn't even ask for. Or being upset seeing gifts they gave someone in a thrift store, and honestly I have made gifts for people (THAT HAVE ASKED) and I have never had this problem. So I don't understand why yall crochet something for hours not even knowing if that person would want that? And if I gave someone something and they put it in a thrift store why is that a bad thing?
If they just keep it lying around in their
house in a closet because they don't like it anymore that's more of a waste of yarn and time than if they let it be sold off to someone that wants it, that doesn't mean they dont appreciate it. People's taste change and that's OK! I feel like sometimes people are getting too attached to things they made that nobody asked for and want everybody to care for these crochet or knit items the same amount they do when that's just unrealistic.

That's not a scoop, it's a boat. That's not a scoop, it's a crew.

Patterns labelled scoop neck: 19,325

All other necklines combined: 2,262

But also (and probably most importantly), fking Rabelry not offering a simple "round" or "jewel" option for designers to chose in the massive chasm that is the space between crew and scoop.

That's it, that's the post.

I know there’s always like “pattern dupe!” posts for things from Damson Madder, Free People, whatever other trendy shop.

But to post “hey look I bought this thing from Free People and I’m making a pattern for it sign up to be a tester!” feels so icky??

I don’t care about it from the standpoint of “stealing” from a big company especially because we all know these companies have copied small artists many many times. I don’t know anything about the legal implications of this.

It just feels so weird to be a pattern designer saying “hi! I have no creativity! I’m just going to buy something from Free People, cut it up, and sell you a pattern!”

Wasn’t Small Museum in CPMG? Would explain a lot.

For a community that preaches sustainability and is against overconsumption, the hype over making replicas of The Garment™️ doesnt make sense. The original piece is viewed as a piece of art by many, but it is impractical, consumes a lot of yarn and is not, in my opinion, a timeless piece that the makers of it will use every cold season or so. Idk I just wanted to bitch lol Edit: it might be a hottake unironically

Stop asking if these colors go together, if you should've stopped before you added those cuffs, which stitch you should use, what you should make next.

Our OPINION doesn't matter. We aren't going to wear it. We aren't going to be staring at those colors for hours. Why do you think our tastes are at all relevant to what you're posting about?

Can I bitch about sewing tutorials that tell you to sew over pins, and assume the needle will miss them or push them out of the way?

This is incredibly dangerous, and has caused serious eye injuries. Hitting a pin is also a good way to throw your timing off, which has become more serious, as it gets harder and harder to find a sewing machine shop

If you have to ask how its done because you lack experience with a broad number of techniques and cant identify what youre looking at, 90% of the time that means you arent artistically familiar or skilled enough to make the thing youre inspired by. No amount of discussion or youtube watching will magically improve the trajectories your hand follows. Technical skill can only be built by literally doing the thing over and over for years as you learn all the different nuances of it. This can only come from real experience. The answer is "you cant make this right now" and to try a different idea instead of thinking, you can just jump right in and match the level of a world renowned artist or producer with a couple of reddit questions, sorry.

In early September my niece asked me to help with a Halloween costume. I said yes, of course, figuring it’s only a vest, it’s just a bunch of red & green squares, she’s small, how hard can it be? So, with no pattern, just measurements & a picture of the video game character I’m all - no problem! I even already had cheap acrylic yarn in exactly the right colors already so I didn’t spend a penny. It’s my first time knitting with 100% acrylic & I learned to my dismay that I am 100% a yarn snob. I fucking hate the way acrylic feels to knit with, I hate how it looks, I kind of suck at knitting flat, but I especially suck at knitting with acrylic. Which means I procrastinated working on the project/dreaded knitting even when I forced myself to do it. Now, it’s literally down to the wire. I must get this in the mail tomorrow so she has it in time & I’m going to be up all night to finish the damn thing. I hate this project. I should not have said yes. Especially because I spent half the weekend helping my other niece (who is local to me) make her Halloween costume). There are not enough hours in the day.

But, I love being helpful. I love knowing they’ll ask me for stuff like this. So, if I had to do it all over again I would still say yes. Wtf is wrong with me?!

I hate hanks with a burning passion. Do I look at the beautiful hand dyed yarn and covet it? Yes. But I know in my heart that I will grow to hate that yarn as I sit with it wrapped around my knees, painstakingly winding with a crushing awareness that if I lose focus, even for a second, I'm going to be untangling that bastard for the rest of my natural life.

jUsT BuY a sWiFt

I should not be ezpected to purchase an expensive piece of equipment that takes up a ton of space (yes, even the small umbrella swifts take up a lot of space) just because the seller couldn't be arsed to wind the yarn before selling it.

The thing is, the seller - even the most small scale indie seller - has a swift. They can get that bad boy wound into a functional ball in minutes. Just a tiny bit of extra work. And I'd probably buy it if they did.

It feels like laziness, or prioritising aesthetic over actual usability on the part of small indies. And it is completely inexcusable when a commercial company where the yarn is mass-produced sells in hanks.

Signed,

A crafter who lost patience for a nanosecond and is now untangling 150 metres of yarn.

My biggest pet peeve in sewing/crafting communities this time of year is when someone comes on here with an overly ambitious costume idea and instead of giving helpful tips on how to make something last-minute, Redditors just chastise the asker. I saw someone post today "Do you even have a sewing machine?" in response to someone asking if a certain project would be hard for a beginner to finish in a week. You can gently tell the person that it would be hard, but no need to insult them!

Halloween is the PERFECT time to try out new techniques to make a costume! The bar for a wearable costume is in whatever garbage can birthed that cheap plastic fabric that store-bought costumes are made from. It's not like these posters are expecting to make a black tie worthy garment in a week with no experience, but they can surely attempt a garment that just needs to look okay in a dimly lit party. Let's share our experience and encourage hasty costume-making! I know I've made plenty of things that current me would cringe at, but I learned the most from projects outside of my comfort zone that I was simply excited to try!

Who's with me in my quest to encourage and enable newbies to make their visions come to life (even if Halloween is only a week away)?!!

1. I already have too much random stuff in my studio apartment as is. Sorry I’m not wanting to add to the clutter with a pity purchase ¯_(ツ)_/¯
2. This type of post is such a sympathy grab that it makes my molars ache. I get all sorts of compliments when I show off stuff that I’ve made but they obviously don’t turn into sales - people say a lot of stuff just to be nice.

2.a. People saying “no” aren’t haters. No is a valid answer.

An artist I have take classes from keeps putting our fliers for upcoming craft events generated with AI. At art and craft studios. I just dont understand!!!

So many in my feed by artists, crafters, store owners, social justice activists—guys please just stop!!! Theyre ugly, they add mistakes, and theyre destroying the planet!!!

How can I tell her without being a jerk?
Or do I let it go?
Sigh.
I hate it here.

It’s the ply, it was your ply today, someone else’s the day before and someone’s the day before that. Don’t tell me you’ve tried to look it up when it you scroll to YESTERDAY it’s the same zoomed in stitch photo probably just in a different color. There’s multiple knitting subs with someone asking the same question every few days sometimes every other day.

I’m sorry if this feels minor and maybe it’s because I’m knitting a sweater with the ply in question but like Reddit is not your personal google. Put in some effort first.

Thanks so much for hearing my irritation.

It makes no sense. Let's say you love making doillies and youre part of a sub thats also about doillies. ​why woukd you ask other dollie enthusiasts if you should gift your boyfriend's cousin twice removed a doilies if you don't know of shes also an enthusiast? Yes, it night be pretty but does she actually like them ??? Am I making sense?

"How do I display my knit art?" Ma'am that is a cardigan. One displays it upon one's body

"I can't seem to sell my crochet art at the local craft fair!" Le sigh. There is an infinitesmally tiny market for single crochet amoeba-shaped bookmarks.

"I want to become a fiber artist! How should I start?" Start by acknowledging that nothing you create as a beginner will ever be worthy of the title "art."

"My artisan wreaths aren't appreciated by my family." Generally, it is hard to...erm...appreciate odd scraps of fabric poked into a pool noodle with dollar store ornaments hot glued in between vague shapes constructed of pipe cleaner and bits of glitter.

"I have crafted popsicle stick art as gifts for my family and friends. May they cherish their original pieces forever." Have you let 3rd grade go yet? I gently suggest it is time, friend.

The crafting world believes that if they slap the term "art" alongside any crafting activity it not only elevates the product, it engenders mountains of praise and adoration.

I'm being vague on purpose because I don't want to send any hate towards the creator of the advent but I'd like to vent/see if anyone else has had this or similar issues:

the advent is from a Youtuber I really like. they announced that they were going to do a halloween yarn advent and were taking limited orders. I jumped at the opportunity to support a small business/someone who I enjoyed watching. they mostly do knitting podcast stuff with other videos sprinkled in. the offer was $140 including the shipping for 500g of fingering weight yarn, which I thought was super reasonable. it didn't take too long to arrive either.

however, upon opening the advent I discovered that I REALLY hated the colors. they didn't seem to go well together as a whole and seemed really desaturated for being advertised as "paired well with a solid black" but also some of the colors seemed a little muddy? I can't understate what a disappointment it was.

to make it worse, a different YouTuber I watch opened the same advent I got on camera and the colors are so totally different. if I had received what this YouTuber received, I wouldn't have hated it so much: the colors were so much more cohesive and in the same color story than what I received. I knew the original YouTuber/dyer (who made the advent) made two batches, but the amount of difference in the quality of the batches really upset me.

I left a comment under that video expressing my experience with the advent and I was recommended to reach out to the dyer about it. But I don't feel like it would change anything. I don't want a refund, because technically I signed up for a blind advent and I got what I paid for: 500g of fingering weight yarn. and with how low the cost was, I don't want to put the dyer out of that money. what I'm taking away from this is that I just wouldn't buy from her again, but she doesn't seem to dye yarn full-time so I don't think it'd be an issue. I also still plan on trying to use the yarn so it doesn't go to waste but I don't think I'll use it together in a project because they don't mesh well together.

Why does everyone say that they “self drafted” something they designed?? It seems unnecessarily redundant. Can’t you just say you drafted a pattern? What other way can you draft a pattern if you didn’t do it yourself? It would be like saying, “I self-painted this watercolor painting,” “I self-designed this 3d print,” etc.

Are your scissors OK? Ask the TSA.
Are your needles OK? Ask the TSA.
Is yarn OK? Ask the TSA.

Or I have a better idea ask a bunch of people who are going to give you 33 suggestions apiece and then say something like “… But you never know…” when you do. You just have to check with the TSA. There’s a whole section of this on the website.

​

Maybe it's just that I've been more often online on Reddit and TikTok (I'm showing my age, but I was mostly communicating with knitters on Facebook and watching YouTube videos until recently) and never noticed it before, but EVERY SINGLE DAY someone posts about twisted stitches.

It's like every time I blink my eyes a twisted stitch is being made somewhere in the world.

I keep looking at my work like "AM I twisting MY stitches?!". I'm not, but I'm looking at them suspiciously every now and then because this looks contagious.

I am making a 1930s evening gown. I have the requisite silk crepe, but it needs underlining to add a bit of body and weight and opacity. Every recommendation I've seen suggests cotton batiste.

So why is the damn stuff nearly impossible to find? Especially in colours other than white. Every example of batiste I've seen for sale is in white and is for embroidery and christening gown purposes, in weird widths and only comes in white. Do they expect us to dye our own fabrics? I wish we lived in the days of specialist fabric suppliers where they could just source the stuff for you instead having to hunt down the entire internet. I live in London by the way, so no chain shops, almost every fabric shop here is independent and yet every time I've asked about a certain fabric I'm looking for, staff is barely helpful - what you see in the shop is what you get.

I have similar problems with silk organza, though that's a bit more easily available in colour variations.

I have endless gripes about the lack of quality haberdashery too, specifically metal buttons, most metal buttons are plastic with a coating and they break and chip and discolour with time. And getting the right buttons in the right sizes is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Modern plastics are cheap and will chip as soon as you look at it, but outerwear needs something more hard-wearing.

I'm aware that this is an incredibly niche complaint, but it's making my hobbying so much harder!

*I just started knitting yesterday, please teach me everything! And what should I make? No, I won’t search the subreddit to see if this exact post was made five times today already*

Anyone else sick to death of this type of post? I get it, knitting is extremely trendy, and it’s super fun to learn a new craft. But showing up to the knitting subreddit like it’s your first day on earth & expecting everyone else to be as exited as you are, and also handhold you through learning to knit, is exhausting

I know we have a bad rep for being unfriendly but tbh it’s just exhaustion. We have an faq and no one ever reads it. Or even bothers to search the sub to see that their exact question has been asked 100 times over and the answer never changes

The amount of times I opened a pattern and had to think about if I really want to make that item because the pattern was so hard to read is getting ridiculous. I get that designers want to make their patterns look fun, and whimsical, and thematic, but please think about how easy the pattern is actually to visually parse. I am not dyslexic but some of these pattern are doing their damn best to convince me otherwise.

The thin, tall, serif font does look nice and elegant. It’s also a bitch to try and read. No the bubbly and round font you use for all important text does not make the pattern look fun. All the text just starts blending together.

And don’t get me started on color choices. Some of us like printing our patterns out, some of us only have access to b&w printers. I love that you’re at least trying to establish text hierarchy through colors but please don’t, in black and white the text just starts disappearing. Also who in the world thought colored background was a good idea. Magenta text on a pink background does not a readable pattern make. Not even in color.

Anyway, I’m just glad all patterns that I struggled to read so far were either free or on heavy discount so I wasn’t too bothered. Not looking forward to the day I buy a pattern at full price and get to spend the first several hours making sure I can actually read it.

Somehow, I have an easier time reading scans of hundreds year old handwritten notes for uni than I do reading some of these patterns.

ETA: there’s a reason fonts like Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Calibri, etc are the gold standard. Because people can fucking read them properly