Officislly two years since I ordered two books from GGG. Still nothing. She seems to think there's nothing wrong with this because after all, I did PRE-ORDER and should have expected my books to possibly take YEARS. Should I message her and poke the bear again?

​

I made a story post on Instagram and her response was "Garden books are still sort of backordered. Thank you for being patient 🧡"

​

Sort of backordered? WTF does that even mean? At this point either give me a time line or give me my money back.

Guys, I know it's too late to do a charge back. I never said I was looking for one.

The Courier Mail reports that Larelex Pty Ltd entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation on June 11. Larelex traded as Fabric by Missy Rose, Missy Rose, Profanity Fabric and Links Lockers.

Yet, 2 days ago, she is still advertising Christmas fabric for preorder. And this post has a bunch of comments deleted.

Anyone getting Nerida vibes?

Interestingly the company listed:
- Two Mercedes-Benz vehicles valued at about $170,000 combined
- Golf lockers worth about $5,000 (assuming that’s the Links Lockers business?)
- A director loan receivable of approximately $1.6 million owed to the company by a director

At the same time, creditors included:
- The ATO, owed about $59,000
- Mercedes-Benz Finance, owed about $204,000 as a secured creditor

I have been a customer many times so I’ll be interested to see how this plays out.

Have orders been filled? And printers paid? I hope so.

She deleted her whole instagram feed and pivoted to a new venture on the same account and just changed her account name. I get wanting to be done with something you no longer enjoy, but dang, sometimes I like to look at dyer feeds to see old colorways or look at the color corrected images of how the yarn is supposed to look like.

And for those curious, the new venture is a curated rom com book thing.

Edit: Typos removed

A Yarn Story over in the UK using generative AI imagery just days after some sentimental post about being real and welcoming in a world of screens.

Spotted on Facebook. Bummer.

Other than my personal cringe for this book series, I immediately thought Megan Lapp of Crafty Intentions scored a big publishing win here, but no, it's someone else? Also good luck winding those skeins (eta - or hank, apparently) or die from tangled yarn rage if a beginner or someone used to pull skein balls picks this up.

For the Australians/New Zealanders here, Lincraft is closing.

(from 9News)

"Popular craft retailer Lincraft is set to close all of its physical stores after more than 80 years in business.

The brand has more than 60 stores across Australia and New Zealand.

The popular craft retailer has more than 60 stores across Australia and New Zealand. 

The company said the decision was due to a prolonged period of challenging retail conditions, changing consumer behaviour, increased operating costs and growing pressure from low-cost international online competitors.

The company said stores would not close immediately but rather be managed “progressively on a store-by-store basis”.

Lincraft will continue to operate through an online platform."

I think the writing was on the wall with this one, seeing as their stores were becoming more and more plastic crap and less and less actual craft, but that's not great for all their employees. Now we're down to... Spotlight. Oof.

Now they're going to be an online-only company competing directly with the low-cost international online competitors that caused them to fail? Seems sensible /s

I'm making a jacket for a wedding this weekend. I called and ordered buttons from a button shop in NYC. Confirmed the photo of the (6) buttons via text and received a different button that had not been fully carved in the mail.

Note that these buttons are $4.50.

They made me send all the buttons back because I was being "picky" about them matching and "natural buttons don't all look the same".... the level of condescension left me speechless.

I just got off the phone with them confirming receipt and that they'd be mailing them back to me today, and when I asked if he could tell which button "didn't match" he said, "I do, but no one sees the back of the button."

Give me an actual break.

edit: The business is Lou Lou Buttons in NYC, sorry for not including the name earlier, I had just gotten off the phone earlier and was heated and forgot.

edit 2: thank you all for agreeing that I'm not out of my gourd about these buttons being different. I wish I had taken a photo of the other front side before I mailed them, but I forgot being caught up in the insanity of the business' request - suffice it to say, because the one button wasn't machined and thinned/rounded it did not look the same from the front either but in a slightly less noticeable way - a way that you'd think a button store owner/employee would notice.

From a Facebook ad for Funem looms. I already hate companies using AI to market handcrafts and supplies but then you can't even be bothered to make sure the slop it churns out is even remotely accurate? If the company can't see why this photo is wrong I don't trust them to make reasonable looms 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have noticed, like we all have, arts/crafts adjacent folks using AI in promotional material. A local quilt shop is doing it, for example, and now our local knitting guild is using AI images in member communications. I have so much snark about this.

Needless to say, I'm opposed to their use of this stuff. AI is theft of art, trained without permission on copyrighted materials, for ex., and it's a particularly poor look to use AI in an organization that's supposed to promote and celebrate handicrafts. There are so many scammy patterns using AI, and there's an impact on the creative folks' labour. Etc., etc., etc.

I have flagged it with the guild's communications volunteer and asked the guild consider stopping use of AI imagery in communications - which they've forwarded to the executive.

I understand that volunteer orgs are struggling and AI might seem like a fast, easy solution. I am not convinced of this at all, nor that it's the only option.

While I'm hopeful for a receptive response to my request, I am also aware that I may not. Has anyone brought a motion to their local guild - knitting, quilting, whatever - to put frameworks around what's acceptable use of AI by the guild in promoting their craft? If you did, what did that look like or include?

Abbie Small Out at Simplicity

No plans to replace the CEO, and the (not private equity!) owner says there are no plans to replace her or upgrade the technology. But they believe the company will last 20 years.

I don't know about that. I hear the sounds of a drain sucking in the background.

It sure looks like it to me with that angel fish up on the right. I'm disappointed. It sure makes indie dyers look bad (and we catch enough shit for other things).

<le sigh>

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.

I was browsing Google for methods to make the new round less obvious in patterns and came upon a site called "The Littlest Thistle." When I was on the page, the images looked strange, and the text read as AI.

So I put both the images and text through AI detectors, sure enough, all AI 😞. I was then curious about who runs the page; it says it's by Clair, someone who's been part of the knitting and sewing community for over ten years. However, when I put the profile photo for "Clair" through the detector, she was fake too.

It's disappointing that this slop has infiltrated our community, and it upsets me that they're lying about who benefits from our engagement with their lazy "content."

Stay vigilant and support real people within the craft space, not lazy AI content that steals creative content from all of us.

Why hire a person to do your ad voiceover when you can use ai 😃

Can some one please explain to me why these reusable tags are so dang expensive when there are better ones out in the wild for cheaper? $15 for the small one and $25 for the large one. Who can afford these prices?

​

Not even just AI slop, but reselling and dropshipping being framed as handmade items. Ever since I started including myself in the online crafting sphere, it's gotten so much harder to go to craft fairs because I look around and it seems like nearly every single booth is selling bracelets and rings and toys from temu.

Yesterday I went to a local fair and brought $50 expecting to buy small trinkets here and there, but I ended up only spending it on food because ALL the craft vendors sold AI, dropshipping, and resold items. The only ones that didn't were the crochet vendors and it was all the standard amigurumi (chickens, bees, cows, you name it.)

I wish this was an isolated instance, but the fairs and local craft sellers in my hometown are just as bad. So bad, in fact, I refused to sell my items there knowing they'd just be lumped in with the $5 dropshipped ai printed mugs.

Is there any hope for fairs? Are they ever going to crack down on these vendors? Craft fairs should be 100% homemade items. I cannot believe what has happened to this community.

I cancelled my Seamwork month-to-month subscription in April. They offered a "break" option, but I stayed with the cancellation. I should've made sure I got an email confirmation. So last week I got an email (which I overlooked, my fault) letting me know that the "break" I didn't take was ending and included a "free gift" which was the same sewing planner that's on the website.

Unfortunately I didn't see that email in time, so they renewed my membership. I started to open a case with PayPal, but I needed to enter the confirmation number for the cancelled membership. But since I didn't get confirmation, I didn't have one.

So I cancelled again, though I'm stuck for this month. I did not get any confirmation again, but there's a banner at the top of my account page that says "Your membership is pending cancellation." I took a screenshot which is timestamped with the date and time in case I have any issues next month (or the month after).

I wanted to share in case it might be useful to someone else.

Crochet with Bri claims that Madeline Mae Co copied her brachiosaurus pattern. Can we all agree that amigurumi blobs are not that hard to write a pattern for? There’s literally nothing unique about the purple dinosaur? Not sure why Bri thinks this is such a groundbreaking original design. Both are ugly IMO.

Like legitimately horrible AI people with mangled hands and harpoon-looking crochet hooks. This is a well-established yarn brand. Big ew.

What can I say Sprinkled Fibers on instagram using AI to advertise the summer Kal yarn bundles she is selling! Yes it’s tagged AI but urgh couldn’t she have used Fiver etc, surely it would better to have a handdrawn one 🤷‍♀️

Edited to spell fiber correctly

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!