Have you noticed the trend of photographing knitwear without a face attached? I like that style and embraced it while choosing photos to promote my knitting pattern called Twoolen. I felt that it put the focus on the sweater, not the person. And let’s be honest, I’m not really a model. 

Alas, another internet trend has developed. Thieves are stealing patterns and chopping off the heads of the models in the accompanying photos. I’m pretty sure this happened before AI, but clearly it’s a problem now.  When I’m on social media forums lots of people post these AI fakes and ask, “doesn’t anyone know where I can find this pattern?”  The crowd responds: it’s an AI fake. The author of the post asks, “how do you know”.  This back-and-forth is repeated everyday. 

I was listening to a youtube video (while knitting, thus the reason for not watching) about images on the internet and how it’s important to look like a human now. In other words, put your face in the photo. This comment was not about knitting patterns, but right away I saw the truth in this idea. Most of the designers I follow use their faces in their promotional images. I know their faces and I know their pattern designing style. Some examples of designers that do a good job of being humans on the internet are: Briana Arlene, Native Knitter, and Tracey Doxey.  These designers share quite a bit about their lives. They are clearly real people with real pattern designs. 

So when I say, “How to be a human on the internet” what I’m really saying is “how to not look like a bot”.  (As for being a good human, that’s on you and will not be addressed here.)  Sadly, the internet world has come to this. There are so many scams on fb marketplace and all the buy-and-sell groups, we all have to be careful.  My default mode is: that’s not a real person. I’ve tipped over into the doubt-everything mind-set. As for knitting patterns, I wouldn’t buy anything unless I was totally sure the designer was getting paid. Pro tip: if the pattern is being sold for $2, scammers are just getting your credit card info and you will not get a pattern. (I read that story on a knitting forum.)

I don’t think a person has to show their face to be seen as a human and not a bot. Half of my internet friends have their cat or dog as their avatar! I love that. My original Fleece Love and Happiness (circa 2008)  avatar was a photo of my hands holding yarn. Moving forward, I will be mindful of how I portray myself and I will not shy away from sharing my humanness. Mistakes and all.  Human slop is so much better than AI slop, right?

I should have known better. If you give something away for free, someone else will take it and sell it. In a round-a-bout way, that is what the websites that gather free patterns in one place are doing. They make money from the advertisements they sell. So people go to the websites for the pattern and see all the ridiculous links to “download” something. A few of these sites have had my patterns up and they redirect people to this blog for the pattern. I surrendered early on to that situation. I check the link, and if it really goes to my blog, I just let it be. These shitty sites include, but are not limited to: sarahmaker.com, knit-knit.com, and intheloopknitting.com. Do not click on them!

Sometimes my name has been removed for a pattern/chart and there is no link to me or to Fleece Love and Happiness. When this happens on Pinterest I fill out a complaint form. I prove it’s my pattern by linking to my original post. Pinterest deals with it right away! Within 24 hours they will take those fraudulent pins down. Today I was on a site that had my photography and my charted pattern and the name on it was Sarah White. Wow. That’s probably not even a person. An AI bot probably scooped a bunch of free patterns off the internet and posted them to sell adds.

I come from an era of using the internet to share ideas. That’s why I wrote free patterns and that’s why I blab away on this blog. But times have changed and every corner of the internet has been monetarized. Today I edited every post that I have made that includes a free pattern download pdf to say: “Please do not post this pdf on other websites! If you want to share it, just link to this page.” I’m not sure that will deter anyone but I figured I should state it clearly.

Theft is a problem for all artists and craftspeople who put their work on the internet. I’m a beginner silversmith and I hear from the real artists that make their living selling jewelry that scams are everywhere. Thieves take the photos of their jewelry and post it for sale, take the money, and never send the item because, of course, they never had it. I’m talking about beautiful hand crafted silver pieces worth several hundred dollars. To make matters worse, the duped buyer is livid and they write horrible reviews of the artist.

On that note, I can only be a little grumpy about people taking my free patterns. What’s really crazy is people posting knitting patterns that are in books or purchased pdfs. I cringe when I see those Pinterest pins of photos taken of the pages from a pattern book.

The photo above is a pattern called Pretty Please Mittens that I published on this blog in 2023. I found it on a website that had “10 Free Patterns for Beginner Knitters”. Ok, anyone who has knitted my mitten patterns knows they are not for beginners! They are knitted on size 2 needles, in the round, using 2 strands at a time, and changing colors often. I think an adventurous intermediate knitter could give this a go, but you’d drive yourself crazy if you were a true “beginner”.

I’ll end it there. I know I’ve been a little cranky in my last few posts. Bear with me. I’ll get back to Fleece Love and Happiness!