How I Avoid AI Crochet Patterns When Shopping Online

AI-generated crochet patterns and images are becoming increasingly common online, and unfortunately they're also getting better.

Some are still easy to spot. You look at the picture and immediately know something isn't right. Others can fool you until you zoom in and really examine the crochet.

And it isn't only about fake pictures. There are also patterns being sold that may never have been crocheted or tested by an actual person. That can leave the buyer with instructions that don't work, impossible stitch counts, or a finished project that could never look like the picture used to sell it.

I've been crocheting for more than 30 years, and even with that much experience, I can't always tell immediately whether something is legitimate.

So instead of relying on my ability to recognize an AI image, I've developed some rules for how I shop for crochet patterns.

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I Start With the Seller

Before I fall in love with the pattern, I look at who's selling it.

On Etsy, my personal rule is that I generally don't buy from a seller with less than a 4.8 rating, and I want them to have at least 200 reviews behind that rating.

A 5-star rating from 12 customers doesn't tell me nearly as much as a 4.8 or 4.9 rating from hundreds or thousands of customers.

There are exceptions to my rule.

If I've used one of the designer's free patterns, participated in one of their crochet-alongs, or otherwise know their work and know that they're creating legitimate crochet patterns, I don't need those 200 reviews.

And I want to be very clear about something: a new designer with only a handful of reviews isn't automatically selling AI patterns. Every legitimate designer started with zero sales and zero reviews.

I'm simply deciding how much evidence I personally need before spending my money with a seller I don't know.

I also read the reviews instead of looking only at the number. Reviews with pictures are especially helpful because I can see projects other customers have actually made from the pattern.

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Use Etsy's Star Seller Filter

One of the easiest ways I've found to narrow an Etsy search is something that's already built into Etsy.

Open the search filters and look for Star Seller.

Etsy awards Star Seller status to shops that meet its current requirements in areas such as customer service, reviews, sales and order fulfillment.

When I'm searching for patterns, limiting my results to Star Sellers weeds out a lot of the questionable shops.

It doesn't guarantee that every pattern in those results is legitimate, and not having Star Seller status certainly doesn't mean a designer is doing anything wrong.

Think of it as one more filter rather than a guarantee.

When Etsy gives me hundreds of results, it's a very easy way to narrow down where I want to start looking.

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Then I Look at the Actual Crochet

This is probably the biggest thing I've learned as AI images have become more common:

Don't look at the blanket. Look at the stitches.

AI is very good at making something that gives the overall impression of crochet.

From a distance, you see a gorgeous blanket, sweater or amigurumi and your brain immediately recognizes it as crochet.

Zoom in.

Can you identify the stitches?

Can you follow the rows?

Do the stitches connect in a way that would actually be possible with yarn and a crochet hook?

Do some stitches suddenly change shape, disappear or melt into one another?

Do complicated details appear without any logical stitch structure creating them?

Real crochet has rules. Every stitch has to be made somewhere.

AI doesn't have to understand how the project was constructed. It only has to create pixels that convince us we're looking at crochet.

The more you crochet, the more useful your own experience becomes here. You know what yarn does. You know what stitches look like. If something doesn't make sense, take a closer look.

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Look at the Whole Shop, Not Just One Picture

If I'm still unsure, I start looking for the bigger picture.

Does this designer have customer project photos?

Do I see tester photos?

Are there different photographs of the same project?

Does the shop have a history of designs with a reasonably consistent style?

Can I find the designer elsewhere online?

Do they offer free patterns, tutorials or crochet-alongs?

None of these things is mandatory. A perfectly legitimate designer might not use social media or have a tester team.

I'm simply looking for evidence that there is an actual crochet designer behind the shop and that real people are making the patterns.

Price can be another clue when it's combined with other things.

I've noticed that some questionable shops are relatively new, have very few sales or reviews, yet already have large numbers of elaborate patterns with incredibly polished images, often priced extremely cheaply.

A cheap pattern isn't proof of AI.

A new shop isn't proof of AI.

A beautiful photograph isn't proof of AI.

But when several things don't quite add up, I move on.

I don't have to prove the seller did anything wrong. I just have to decide whether I want to buy from them.

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Be Careful With AI-Enhanced Photos, Too

There's also a gray area between a completely fake AI image and a normal photograph.

AI tools can change backgrounds, colors and details or make an actual crocheted project look dramatically different.

I don't have a problem with someone cropping a photo, adjusting the lighting or removing a distracting background.

What matters to me is whether the picture still honestly represents the crochet pattern being sold.

If AI enhancement changes the stitches, adds details that aren't actually in the project, or makes the finished piece look substantially different from what I'll be able to crochet, that's misleading.

I'm buying the pattern partly because of what you've shown me I can make.

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What About Ravelry?

I know some crocheters love Ravelry, particularly because they like having their patterns in one place.

I’m not one of them.

I find Ravelry annoying because I'll sometimes find a pattern I'm interested in, click on it, and discover that it's no longer available or that I have to go somewhere else to purchase it anyway.

I prefer keeping control of my own pattern library.

I use cloud storage such as Google Drive to save the patterns I buy. That way it doesn't matter whether I purchased a pattern on Etsy, directly from a designer's website or somewhere else.

Everything can still be in one place.

I can make folders for mosaic, C2C, baby blankets, Christmas, favorite designers, patterns I want to make someday, or whatever organization makes sense to me.

I'm not dependent on the marketplace where I originally bought the pattern to keep my collection organized.

If Ravelry works for you, great. It just isn't necessary if the main reason you're using it is to keep your patterns together.

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We're Going to Have to Become Smarter Shoppers

I don't think AI-generated crochet is going away.

In fact, I expect it will become harder to identify from the photograph alone.

That's why I don't think there's one magic trick for spotting an AI crochet pattern.

I look at the seller's history and reviews. I use Etsy's Star Seller filter. I zoom in and examine the actual stitches. I look for evidence that people have made the pattern. And if several things about a shop make me uncomfortable, I simply buy something else.

Most importantly, I don't accuse a designer of using AI because they're new, inexpensive, or don't meet one of my personal shopping rules.

These are shopping guidelines, not proof that someone has done something wrong.

There are plenty of talented, legitimate crochet designers creating and testing real patterns, including new designers who haven't had time to build hundreds of reviews yet.

And when I find designers whose work I trust, I remember them.

Because at the end of the day, when I spend money on a crochet pattern, I'm not just buying a pretty picture.

I'm buying instructions that I expect to actually work.

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