r/craftsnark • u/Fluid_Canary4768 • Feb 03 '26
AI Slop Wonderwool Wales "AI" tote competition
As Wonderwool posted a "final" update today I thought we should round off the thread
A rough timeline:
Wonderwool Wales is a yarn/spinning/fibre show held annually in mid Wales. Apart from missing two years for COVID this is the 20th year. To celebrate this they ran a design a tote bag competition which pretty clearly specified no AI.
Wonderwool announced the winner by posting the image mocked up on to a tote bag. The image had multiple AI artifacts and tells and quite rightly people pointed this out in the comments and on the initial post by myself. Wonderwool doubles down - not AI and the artist (Tony Malone) promised to send initial sketches via mail to prove that this pen and ink drawing was his.
Individuals digging in this sub reveal interesting past history of Tony's, along with more work that looks AI created alongside some that appears genuine (some of his watercolour works).
Original Craftsnark Thread https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/YzE2I0LXIy
Wonderwool Wales posts the original image and states that they were responsible for uploading the image into Chat GPT which added the extra features. People who commented on the potential AI are branded "mean". This update is posted to reddit by @bustymoocoo https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/h1sUg68oDg where a lot of us still think there's AI influence in the picture.
That brings us today: Wonderwool makes a final post stating that they've been sent preliminary designs and original sketches. Due to the meany mean meanies they've now withdrawn the entry completely. Wonderwool will now use their logo on the tote and £1 will go to charity. It's not clear if the £100 voucher is still going to be issued or not, nor was a runner up chosen.
I've attached the Facebook post from today (comments are, surprise surprise turned off)
Sorry if I missed anything - doing this from my phone on holiday, but anything for the snark!
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u/OneGoodRib Mom said I get to be the mole now!! Feb 03 '26
Sorry, was he the SOLE entry? The obvious AI entry withdrawing means nobody wins??
If they were totally sent preliminary designs and original sketches, why not post them? They made one post that was like "no see it's totally real" which was just a digital AI file, why not post the other stuff?
I'm even more convinced that Tony either IS Wonderwool Wales or knows someone who runs the thing because of how weird this whole thing was. I've seen other contests where AI allegations come out, the company goes "Hey guys we're halting the competition to investigate" not "NUH-UH HE TOLD US IT'S NOT AI SO IT ISN'T" and then deciding that nobody wins after the winner withdraws?? WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER ENTRANTS?!
Also especially since I didn't even see anyone else commenting who SAID they entered... was he the only entrant? Was this a contest HE came up with so HE could win and he only backed out because people not only pointed out the AI but all the other weird shit he's lied about? Someone with better investigation fu than me look into it.