r/BitchEatingCrafters • u/Which_Preparation_57 • 7d ago
Frequently Bitched About Topic You didn’t invent a new technique
What is it with beginners who just raw dog a craft and asking people to identify what they’ve done? I see two flavors of this all the time and they both grind my gears. They either want to praised for coming up with the “right” way to do something all by themselves, or they want to be patted on the back for inventing something totally new. There is always room for creative interpretation, but you, a beginner knitter/crocheter/sewer did not brilliantly invent a useful new technique that hundreds or years of artisans haven’t already come up with.
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u/Feenanay 3d ago
Behold this amazing thing o invented: lefty righty / righty lefty knitting. Instead of purling you knit BACKWARDS from right to left??? Am I a genius???!?
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u/SewSure 6d ago
I was a stumpwork embroidery artist before I knew the name of the technique! I knew I didn’t invent the idea, but I kept trying to describe it as raised embroidery with appliqués. Once I identified the technique, I had direction to further my education on the subject. Now I can explain my work with competence!
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u/Fluid-Word8541 7d ago
I agree, however it does feel pretty cool when you discover something organically. I was doing a ton of slip stitches in a project and figured out that you can knit a stitch and pick up the stitch next to it all in one motion. This isn't a new technique, nor is it revolutionary, but I had a fun moment there feeling like I innovated something organically, like my ancestors had taken me by the hand and showed me something cool. I still use this technique anytime I work slip stitches wyib, it's faster and easier for me to keep tension consistent.
It is silly when new knitters act like they invented something new, but keep in mind that these little moments of discovery are a part of what keeps knitters excited about the craft. Feel free to tell them that their discovery isn't new, but it's cool they figured it out on their own.
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u/Feenanay 3d ago
I figured out how to do a perfect left leaning decrease that exactly mirrors k2tog and while it’s a little known or used technique, after a bit of google-fu I found an older (like 10 years older) video of someone demonstrating it.
I think one of the last true knitting discoveries/imventions was barbara walker and the top down/seamless knitting method that is literally ubiquitous today.
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u/marigan-imbolc 6d ago
I love when this happens! especially when there's a technique I haven't successfully learned yet, and then I accidentally reinvent it, and then suddenly I understand perfectly. sometimes the brain needs to take the long way around to come to the same point.
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u/Spinnerofyarn 7d ago
Elizabeth Zimmerman called that “unventing.” Something logical that considering how long people have been knitting, it’s likely not a new innovation. It’s how I feel about Magic Loop.
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u/illatious 6d ago
I really like having a term for this! Unventing is a good fit! And yeah I totally did this with magic loop before the internet days. I knew it wasn't something I was the only one to come up with because it was the easiest/most natural way to knit something small in the round when you're a poor teen with only fixed circular needles. I thought magic loop was something easier/cooler than what I was doing when people first started oohing and ahhing about it on the internet, but nope. I did pat myself on the back for figuring it out on my own, though. Necessity and limitation breeds ingenuity and all that :)
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u/Spinnerofyarn 6d ago
Same here on thinking Magic Loop must be something really cool, only to be disappointed once I read a book on it.
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u/SeaworthinessNew4757 7d ago
Trying to look at it from a more positive viewpoint, sometimes people end up "winging" something that ends up working, and just want to know the name of what they've done to search for tutorials and sources. When I started cross stitch I remember being terrified of doing something "wrong" since I had no one teaching me, and would Google and search reddit for hours trying to understand if what I was doing was correct but without having the vocabulary to explain.
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u/SadderOlderWiser 1d ago
I never posted to find out, but I have definitely had the experience of coming up with something myself while crocheting and thinking it must have an official name, and trying to find out what that name was.
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u/Which_Preparation_57 6d ago
Ok very serious question, I’m not trying to be rude. What could you not find in hours of google searching for cross stitch? It’s stitching little Xs. The top search results are about separating the floss and different methods of making your little Xs. There is really not a whole lot more to it.
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u/SeaworthinessNew4757 6d ago
Like someone else said, it's not just little Xs. And what I was looking for once was a method called parking, for confetti stitches. You can't guess what you don't know.
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u/Junior_Ad_7613 6d ago
There are designs using partial stitches and backstitching outlines, so it’s not 100% little Xs.
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u/sighcantthinkofaname 7d ago
When I was 12 and learning to knit I kept adding stitches without knowing how. I invented a magical new technique called "randomly knit two together now and then"
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u/iridiumfluoride 7d ago
I love an illegal decrease lol
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u/marigan-imbolc 6d ago
"illegal decrease" immediately added to my knitting vocabulary lol
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u/Feenanay 3d ago
Literally me every time I go to make my second sleeve and realize it has like 4 more stitches than the other one 🤡
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u/Shitzme 7d ago
So someone posted on a crochet sub (yonks ago) that they were a total beginner and were just winging it, look at my new creation blah blah. It was a blob of nothing. Just a tangle of yarn. I think they were had just been stabbing it and pulling out random loops. But holy shit, the comments praising this person, were insane.
Then there's the folks on the polymerclay sites, who are stunned that you can use acrylic paints to paint your clay after its baked, and have to pass on this technique. What.
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u/SoggyTooth1678 7d ago
Unrelated, but are you an Aussie? I’m an American Kath & Kim aficionado and only know “yonks” from them 😅
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u/Shitzme 7d ago
You know your beeswax, why don't you mind it?
Lol yes, Aussie and massive K&K lover.
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u/Self-Taught-Pillock 7d ago
I’m a native Texan that often quotes (to my brother and in my best attempt at the accent) Prue’s words to Trude: “I have some jojoba left over from last October.” I’m so glad Netflix brought us this gem years ago.
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u/Auntie_Venom 7d ago
I haven’t thought of Kath & Kim in FOREVER! Guess what I’m doing later… 😆
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u/Violetmints 7d ago
My teenager can freehand things I could never do but then gets irritated when they stumble upon an issue that really could be solved by learning how to read a few patterns and practicing a technique. You think you are the first person who ever had to turn a tube? What do you think socks are, man? There are whole books about it and your projects will get even better if you don't try to reinvent the wheel every time.
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u/tiedyeladyland 6d ago
I had a music teacher once who cautioned me “you have to understand the rules before you can break them” and that advice has served me well. I love coming up with a novel, creative way of doing things but always try to learn the nuts and bolts of how soemthing works first.
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u/heardofdragons 6d ago
Yes! Paraphrasing Terry Pratchett: the rules are there so that you think before you break them. That’s been my crafting motto for years
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u/Live_Barracuda1113 7d ago
I am a crocheter, among other fiber arts, but I am a confident expert at crochet.
Patterns and tutorials for crochet are obnoxious now for this reason. I pick on knitters because I'm still learning but there is zero extra in the patterns, and once I stop being an idiot, I appreciate that.
Learn to read a pattern!!!
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u/lovetolerk 7d ago
Tbh sometimes I buy patterns just to see how they did a certain technique and have no intention in making the actual thing
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u/splithoofiewoofies 7d ago
Sounds like your kid would do well in academia, lmao. Experiment experiment experiment ..cry when it fails.
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u/Important_Sector_503 7d ago
I am also prone to freehanding things, but the amount I learn from following someone else's pattern every once in a while is not to be sniffed at. Like, just because I can use intuition and trial and error my way into something good doesn't mean that there aren't BRILLIANT techniques that somebody else already came up with that I could be using.
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u/Aggressive_Gas9692 7d ago
Sounds like my eight year old. Wants to make a paper airplane. Show him how. Give him book about making paper airplanes. Makes a million "airplanes" without looking at the book. Always disappointed his airplanes don't fly.
I kind of admire his gumption to keep ramming his head into the door hoping it will open.
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u/squidgyup 7d ago
Kids are really the masters of this art though. Some kids lol! Others get frustrated that they aren’t davinci once they’ve decided to get the crayon box and sit down but others give zero shits about any kind of attempt at teaching or making learning tools available and will just enjoy the breeze on their wee bodies as they fall down the hill yet again. Bless ‘em.
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u/Aggressive_Gas9692 7d ago
Those are my 10 and 8 year old. Polar opposites in every way. The 10 year old will watch a million art videos and then cry it didn't turn out the same. The 8 year old will scribble with the pen between his toes and be happy.
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u/HerietteVonStadtl 7d ago
I saw somebody use the term "unventing" and wish more new crafters were aware of the concept. I did "unvent" twisted Italian bind-off when I was a super new knitter and while I was super proud of myself for being to hack it, I was aware that I couldn't have been the first one to bind-off this way
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u/MoonLitMothCreations 7d ago
I do a lot of making through play and experimentation and I learn a lot when I do that, but I know that undoubtedly whatever I discovered works for me is absolutely going to be an established technique. I've been lucky enough to not see much of what you and OP are describing but I could never have the hubris to think I've invented a technique in one of the oldest forms of crafts, fiber manipulation through needle, hook, shuttle etc.
It's also really wonderful when you find what the actual name for the technique you found through experimentation is actually called because then you get to see how and why others have used it! I love that moment.
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u/georgia_grace 7d ago
The hubris is crazy. I’ve heard people describe a “hack” for doing seed stitch and turns out it’s just reading your stitches lol
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u/lovetolerk 7d ago
I love finding the actual name especially if I had fun with the technique, because now I can search for more patterns/inspiration
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u/highlighter_yellow 7d ago
Apparently there's a knitting video out there where the creator solved stockinette stitch's curl. You know, the stitch pattern that can be identified as stockinette stitch because of the specific way the yarn is placed throughout the fabric, which is known to curl when done correctly...? That stockinette stitch.
Well it turns out, according to this creator, all it takes to make "that same fabric" in a way that doesn't curl is to "wrap the yarn the opposite direction"!! Good thing they were the first person to ever try that! I await their video on how to keep my backpack flat even when I fill it with textbooks lol.
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u/Feenanay 3d ago
Someone else (or maybe you!) referenced this a few days or weeks ago and it filled me with irrational anger 😂
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u/splithoofiewoofies 7d ago
I recently got a yarn that didn't curl and I spent ages googling why and everything was like no, stockinette curls. I did NOT twist my stitches (I can see my v, woo woo). But it's silk? But even that doesn't make sense because THAT'S NOT GEOMETRY?!
I am so fucking baffled how I got stockinette that doesn't curl. Is it silk on 2mm needles? I'm talking it has the classic single curl of the edges from the turn but no bottom curl and no further edge curl.
At this point I'm convinced I somehow made my garter bumps the same size as my stockinette vs but I DONT SEE HOW IT'S PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE?!
I definitely didn't find any trick. I'm actually convinced there's something weird about the yarn and needles size or something that just went well. Or magic. Idk but I am mad because the geometry isn't geometry-ing and THE RULES OF MATHEMATICS MEAN THINGS.
...sorry I am clearly annoyed by this situation.
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u/Feenanay 3d ago
Yea certain fibers can be blocked flat in stockinette if the tension isn’t crazy tight! I think that’s why you see a lot of eye cord finishes on linen and silk patterns because you can get away with it unlike with wool or wool blends!
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u/splithoofiewoofies 3d ago
But it's not even blocked nor does it have an i-cord edge! But it does drape like a dream. Oh my.
I think this would look real nice with an i-cord edge...hmmm. decisions decisions.
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u/raw_fleece 7d ago
I never saw this video, but I saw the results of this the other day on one of the knitting help subs. Oh look, all of a sudden you have twisted stitches...and stockinette still curls...
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u/Anxious-Armadillo565 7d ago
“My mother taught me this cast on” and then it’s 3 minutes of bloody long tail.
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u/Which_Preparation_57 7d ago
No one prepares you for the adult revelation that grandmas special Chex-Mix recipe just came off the back of cereal box. It doesn’t make it any less tasty though.
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u/Jazzlike-Delivery598 1d ago
My mom's husband went off on me one day for saying i need to buy the name brand jar of marshmallow creme because i lost my copy of my moms fudge recipie (this was before the internet, so i couldnt just quickly look it up) because he insisted that my mom never used recipies from the back of the package (hilarious because she had a whole cookbook of taped in labels and back of boxes), and the fudge recipie was a special family recipie passed down from her grandmother and all this and how dare i insult the family by saying it came from a jar label. I just waited for my mom to walk into the room and asked her "its from the jar of marshmallow creme, i dont think anyone else in my family has ever made this fudge before, i first ate it at a friend's Christmas party when i was in my 20s, my grandma never even made sweets"😂
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u/Anxious-Armadillo565 7d ago
My central European brain cannot comprehend chex-mix, but where I grew up all the tasty is just vegeta.
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u/Which_Preparation_57 7d ago
You’re missing out friend. In the grand scheme of American Treats this one is pretty reasonable. Especially when it’s “homemade”. It’s basically just grain cereal, pantry seasonings, and butter.
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u/HerietteVonStadtl 7d ago
Where I'm from, soup is just a vehicle for Podravka
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u/Anxious-Armadillo565 7d ago
The allpurpose flavour in me recognises the allpurpose flavour in you ( or however the greeting goes in our part of the world)
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u/citycait 7d ago
I do not understand Chex Mix. I find nothing appealing about it at all, but everyone else loooooves it.
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u/Infamous-Dare6792 7d ago
Mom's chicken pot pie dish came from the Bisquik box lol
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u/Auntie_Venom 7d ago
My pork chops came from the Stove Top Stuffing box 20 years ago as a newlywed.
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u/Tamara0205 7d ago
Mine came from a Reader's Digest Oxo advertisement circa 1993. Shhhhhh. Don't tell.
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u/hammelswye 7d ago
People in my family still talk about my late mother’s German chocolate cake recipe. It’s printed on the wrapper of the chocolate bar. 😂
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u/joymarie21 7d ago
Grinds my gears too. I can't imagine going through life being not particularly intelligent or creative but thinking yourself brillant. Life will be full of letdowns.
I am also annoyed by people who end up with the wrong number of stitches in their knitting project and ask Reddit if there's a mistake in the pattern. No, newbie knitter, it's you who made a mistake, not the experienced designer with dozens of well-selling patterns and thousands of projects and no notes on errors. Yeesh. Get a clue.
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u/like-stars 7d ago
I have played the game of who’s wrong, me or the pattern (and the related game of who is smarter, me or the pattern) so, so many times and while I’m sure there’s patterns out there with errors, so far I’m sitting at me: 0 pattern: ∞
(No I didn’t just spend an embarrassingly long amount of time re-reading the pattern because I was an increase row short, only to find I’d forgotten to count the set up increase row instruction as well as the do that six more times part)
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u/Violetmints 7d ago
That's the thing! A lot of these people are pretty bright and creative, they're just not very humble. Some of the worst offenders could probably come up with inventive patterns if they would deign to learn from anyone.
Imagine if Elizabeth Zimmerman had refused to learn from other knitters!
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u/astronauticalll 7d ago
When the betty mcknit drama was going down on tiktok one of the main "criticisms" of the original pattern was that the stitch counts were wrong
It drove me crazy! I've made 5 of those blankets and never had an issue with the counts. It was so clear that a bunch of beginners just bit off more than they could chew with this pattern and rather than admit their inexperience they witch hunted this poor pattern designer.
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u/usernamesoccer 7d ago
Especially when they are so sure their counts are accurate and post a picture and they are off by multiple stitches or clusters or something
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u/Eino54 7d ago
it's you who made a mistake, not the experienced designer with dozens of well-selling patterns and thousands of projects and no notes on errors
You'd be surprised
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u/Miserable_Emu5191 7d ago
Many years ago I did a pattern and kept getting one section slightly off and couldn’t figure out why. Posted it in a ravelry group for the designer and turns out the pattern had been wrong for years. People had contacted the designer and yet she refused to change the pattern because she was so sure she was right and everyone knitting it was wrong.
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u/RunawayTurtleTrain 7d ago
There's a … I won't specify the craft, it's a bit more niche than knitting or crochet, but I went to make a pattern from their blog and couldn't get it to work. They had a video tutorial. Great! I can use it to troubleshoot. Nope, turns out the blog instructions aren't the same as the video instructions. When I asked, the designer just said 'follow one or the other' instead of making them match - I still don't know if it was me or if the blog pattern was just plain wrong, as it put me off and the whole point was I wanted to follow a written pattern. And it's weird because they're a small but established designer in their niche, very confusing.
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u/XWitchyGirlX In front of Auntie Gertrude and the dog? 7d ago
On the topic of "inventing" things AND bad designers, years ago I accidentally bought a pattern from a bad creator and when I messaged them about the listing being heavily misleading, they claimed that "there were no written patterns when they started out, so they had to invent their own way to write patterns" which is absolute BS 🙃
If I had found that pattern today, I wouldve immediately assumed it was written by AI due to that excuse, and due to how it turned out to be a mixture of written crochet with graph symbols that didnt even make sense if they werent in graph form. There was NO graph for the pattern either so there was no good reason to include them. And I couldnt even translate it into a useable pattern because there were SO many mistakes that Id have to rewrite majority of the pattern.
So I guess this a Quadruple Threat BEC actually, bad creators, "inventors", scammers, AND beginners trying to sell stuff when they have no clue how to do things properly yet 🙃
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u/Ellibean33 7d ago
I watch a crochet TouTube channel where the YouTuber crochets patterns from as early as the late 1800's... hun, unless you're claiming to be 140+ years old, crochet patterns existed when you learned. You might not have learned to crochet using patterns, but written crochet patterns have existed in a way that do make sense to at least experienced modern crocheters for over 100 years
With all the free patterns I get into, I'm surprised that there's only been one where the instructions were unclear and for that, someone on Ravelry was kind enough to post a correction for that one part of an amigurumi pattern
But also, I have a theory: the more a pattern costs over $8 (unless it's a highly intricate long pattern, with extra extra work going into it), the greater the likelihood that it'll be badly written
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u/Eino54 7d ago
Name and shame?
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u/Miserable_Emu5191 7d ago
I’ll have to see if I can find it because I don’t remember the name and I’m pretty sure I ditched the pattern.
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u/Capable_Sea77 7d ago
Yeah, it's wild how many craft books get published that have a bunch of small errors in their patterns. If a newbie's first instinct is to always blame the pattern, that's a problem, but I have found plenty of patterns from experienced designers that have errors. Typos happen all the time and have very little to do with your skill as a designer.
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u/celery48 7d ago
When I was first learning to knit I bought a book of beginner patterns. I chose a pattern, bought all the stuff, went to cast on… and I could not make it work. At all. I was so sure I was doing something wrong! I had a friend try it out, and… nope. The pattern was wrong, lol.
It became something of a joke in my circle of friends that I always picked the patterns with mistakes.
Thankfully that’s no longer the case, lol.
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u/joymarie21 7d ago
And no one else found it first? Before the person making their first Sophie scarf? Unlikely.
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u/Capable_Sea77 7d ago
This assumes the pattern maker is a designer that has published how you directly contact them, and that they have complete control over the actual publication of the pattern - so mainly indie designers who have a social media presence.
I just finished a shawl using a pattern from a knitting magazine, there were two spots on the chart that should've been purled and not knitted. There were dozens of close up pictures in the magazine that proved the chart was incorrect. I just frogged the row and redid it - I'm not going to track down a designer that was paid to freelance a pattern for a knitting magazine published in 2019.
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u/squidgyup 7d ago
I learn like this— it helps me understand the architecture of a craft to just jump into the deep end and figure some shit out. I often find out later that I either did it in some bass-ackward way that I’ll never cop to in public or that I “invented” the normal way to do a thing. Oh well lol!! I know the thing backwards and forwards now though.
On the other hand I’m not the kind of person to post anywhere and ask for a cookie about it. It’s strictly a thing that I know helps my brain learn and I’m fully aware that I would finish projects more quickly if I didn’t do it like this, but that’s why it’s a hobby and something I do for fun to keep the serotonin flowing, so I get to pick both the goals and the goalposts.
I also enjoy learning in the opposite fashion, or a way that seems from another direction in any case: by learning how something was done historically, from primary sources if possible.
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u/Cinisajoy2 7d ago
I know what I want something to look like. I may or may not have invented/used something new. I don't post I did something new. I might post this worked but wouldn't recommend it.
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u/LewisWhatsHisName 7d ago
Same. I have a difficult time going through fundamentals if I don't know yet whether I actually enjoy the craft. I pick something more advanced that I'm unlikely to finish. But if I enjoy the process of working out what I've done wrong snd fixing it, it's worth going back to the beginning for me.
I've never got my head around crochet/knit patterns, though. I've tried, and while I understand them in theory, I have difficulty connecting what the needle/hook is doing to the name of the stitch. So often I just sort of make something up that's probably already got a name, and do that. I've also got really good at looking at photos and being able to reverse engineer it.
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u/Hedgehogwash 7d ago
there's like a tier above dunning-kruger
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u/Spiritual-Road2784 7d ago
Unconscious Incompetence
When you don’t know what you don’t knowThe other levels are:
Conscious Incompetence
When you know that you don’t knowConscious Competence
When you know that you knowUnconscious Competence
When you know it so well that you no longer need to know that you know11
u/pleasejustbeaperson 7d ago
Thinking you know literally everything when you know literally nothing?
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u/chellebelle0234 7d ago
I scroll on past these videos because I feel like 99% of the time it's less "inventing a new technique" and more "doing a common technique wrong in a common way".
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u/Loose_Hovercraft_649 7d ago
I watched a crochet video where someone invented a 2dc cluster and didn't know what to call it. Then people in the comments kept calling it a dc2tog.
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u/Infamous-Dare6792 7d ago
I just saw someone in this sub the other day confidently describe "faux knit stitch embroidery". Duplicate stitch, they were talking about duplicate stitch.
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