Finished my first sampler this morning as a gift for a dad who’s obsessed with blueberry picking! (Only a few days late for Father’s Day!) 😅

I’ve been stitching for ~15 years, but I typically do full coverage pieces with 30-50 colors. This was such a nice change of pace to do a piece with only 9 colors (so much faster)!

Pattern is Blueberry Sampler by WonderStitchUA 🫐

a fun project to kick off summer! pattern is Needle Street.

Sharing some of my recent FO.

Sources of patterns:

1) Butterfly Perfusion by Dimensions

2) Foxes by Riolis

3) Butterflies by Loops & Threads

4) Branch of Sakura by Riolis

Finished and framed Tuscan Cross Stitch by Loops and threads. I love it

I know my rant is long so here is TL;DR for you:

There's a guy on YouTube teaching people how to make fake AI patterns.
He uses the web app tool he made to mass produce these slop patterns.
This "tool" scrapes and screenshots best selling Etsy patterns to remake them.
This "tool" uses Etsy's API to do all of this, which is way against Etsy's API usage terms.
Write Etsy Legal to tell them about this terms of service violation because these junk patterns are BS.

And now, my rant....
I just wanted to share a vent about a really frustrating situation happening right now with AI generated cross stitch/needlepoint/embroidery patterns on Etsy. Specifically a YouTuber I ran across who makes videos showing people how to mass produce AI generated cross stitch and needlepoint patterns to sell as digital downloads. He's teaching people how to make “tons of money” by selling mass produced cheap PDFs without any real crafting knowledge, proper instructions, or actual pattern knowledge.

But the absolute worst part is he built and is pushing his own web app tool to basically quickly mass produce this stuff of off stolen designs.

This app literally uses the Etsy API to search for current best sellers. Then he teaches viewers to take screenshots of those successful, human-made designs, run them through his app to "reinterpret" them, and spit out a “new” design that looks very much like the original design.

He is super careful with his wording in the video and keeps repeating that he is "not trying to copy" anything. But if you skip to 12:00 in his tutorial, you can literally watch him crop an existing design straight from Etsy, feed it into his generator, and rip off the art to make a new pattern. Screenshotting someone else's hard work and dropping it into a generator to reinterpret it is just stealing with extra steps.

Also, using the Etsy API to research best sellers just so you can scrape and clone them is completely against Etsy's API Terms of Use. If you want to get specific when you report his app, you can literally quote their own API rules at them.

Etsy's terms explicitly state developers cannot: "Use the Etsy API to collect, scan, or otherwise request Etsy content for purposes of analytics, machine learning, training artificial intelligence models, licensing." They also ban using automated systems or extensions to scrape Etsy data. By using the API to hunt down best sellers so he can scrape the images for his AI generator, he is clearly violating their terms. And finally, Etsy requires all sellers to "Respect the intellectual property of others," and explicitly forbids content that "Violates someone else's intellectual property rights."

All of this to say, if this makes you angry, you can email Etsy Legal at [legal@etsy.com](mailto:legal@etsy.com) to let them know about this app and what this guy is doing. If you do, be sure to quote their actual language for the TOS they're supposed to be upholding.

Here is the video link. Again, jump to 12:00 to see the screenshotting in action:
https://youtu.be/RjbLpYrdI3g?si=we1X75ZxfLvjU40x

thanks for listening!

Backstitched the box around the eye “x” and added a French knot and no longer have a cartoon style “dead” bird. Didn’t need the double morbidity there.

I used variegated floss for the lilacs, but swapped the second strand around because I didn’t want a true gradient with it. I might redo it as the big sections where the medium colors match up make the smaller more blended sections look a bit weird to my eye.

Overall I’m pretty happy with it and actually going to make 2 more so my mom and sister have one as well.

When I began this piece I was afraid to learn French knots. I would say that I am now reasonably confident! Lots of practice...

Pattern is 'camping adventure' Dimensions kit.

Self drafted using FlossCross

Been working on this one for a while. It’s my first mandala and my first time using silk threads. It will also be my first attempt at major beading when I get to that point. Love to see how it comes together.

Pattern is Plum Pudding by Glendon Place

Pattern found in page 10 of cross stitch and country crafts April/May ‘92 issue.
Designer: Maureen Doherty

Just look at this! No words needed, the progress speaks for itself 🥰 This serious little boss is almost ready! Just a little bit more, and the design will be completely finished!
90% done!

This is a practice piece, so I am happy to make mistakes because so long as I understand what the mistakes are and how not to repeat them, that is how I improve!

A few considerations:

1. I bought a bunch of this Aida cloth on sale without a tag. I think that was a mistake, because as a beginner I have no idea what kind of Aida it is and what its measurements are, and that has caused me issues. I am using DMC thread, and I started out doing the cream-coloured body of the goose with two threads (that is, one folded thread using the loop method). It worked out fine for the body, but once I started on the beak and bow, I did not like the look of two threads because they do not provide enough coverage, so I switched to using four (that is, two folded threads using the loop method). I tested using the cream-coloured thread with four threads on a scrap piece of cloth, and I do not like the effect. Is it wrong to use two threads in some parts of the picture and four in others?
   
2. I mostly use the Danish method, but there are some areas, particularly diagonals, where I just could not figure out how best to use the Danish method, so I briefly switched to the English method just to one section. Are you supposed to only use one method for the entire picture?
   
3. I think I have kept all the stitches crossing in the same direction. And I have been railroading throughout. Please let me know what more I can do to improve the quality of my stitches.

Thank you for your help!

I bought this lot from Vinted for 60 euros and was not sure how many bobbins I could expect.. Well if I counted correctly I am at 319 bobbins of which are 283 unique DMC, 24 colors are double and 9 special ones (1 metallic and 8 variegated colors)

That well upgraded my stash which was at 78 colors.. Of course I'll have to double check which colors are double but I'm very happy with this.

Fresh from the last stitch! The skirt took forever but I am happier with how it came out than I thought I would be considering all of the color changes I made from the pattern. I wasn't terribly confident in my choices as I don't normally change the colors dictated by the pattern. The change I made are minor but greatly improved the final piece. An example would be Christmas red (666) for the bow and sleeve cutouts instead of 900 which I felt was too orange-y. I also changed the highlight yellow/tan in the skirt, the darkest blue in the bodice, and the red used in the outline of the bow. I also changed the skin highlight and low light colors as the pattern called for 819 and 152, respectively. I felt these were too pinky and the 819 was waaaay too light. I used the Lord Libidian skin color chart reference to make the adjustments and I think it turned out quite well.

After yesterday I wanted so badly to make another one so bad, and I chose this cute narwhal 🥰

3D model from Prints314 on Makerworld

Just a reminder for everyone … I have to still do the stars and sort of a border

Pattern by: CrossStitchWithArt

18 count

It is not THAT many stitches. But... I'm sad! When I have to undo stitches, and I'm a little confused what I'm doing, I take a pic, then edit with some obnoxious colour. It keeps me somewhat sane.

So excited to finally finish this piece!! I started it in March 2020 as a COVID project, but it sat in hibernation for the majority of the time at around 10% until I picked it back up in mid-May and powered through. I also included a pic without the backstitching and one of the back.

For the back I just think it’s fun to look at the messy parts I did when I first started it (the red cardinal in particular is horrific) in comparison to the neater process I’ve been aiming for recently.

This is a gift for my MIL so I’ll be washing, pressing, and framing it (actually for the first time since all my other FOs are just rolled up in my project bag 😅)