News – illjay

ai, ai crochet, how to tell if ai - March 1, 2024

How to spot AI crochet

Did you know AI crochet is all over the internet now? Do you know how to tell when an image is AI or real? Here are a set of clues to identify ai crochet imagery. It applies to other types of ai imagery as well. 1. Are you already questioning if an image is ai or not? 2. Does something feel "off" about the photo? 3. The crochet project will look too perfect, or impossible. 4.The photo itself and the lighting will be unnaturally perfect. 5. Look closely at the stitches. Do you recognize any real stitches? Does the image look...

The Crafty Witch

Playing off of lasts years costume as Little Red Riding hood, I wanted to make another hooded cloak, but also nail down the pattern while incorporating it into another costume idea. The Crafty Witch feels more like an alter ego than a costume honestly, as crochet art has always seemed a bit like witchcraft to me as I create items out of thin air. The hooded cloak written pattern is now published and featured in a two part video on the Crochet with illJay YouTube channel: Part1: The Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcS3INnR-G8&t=0s Part 2: The Final Details : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neawo0vHp20&t=1s Although the cloak...

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July 24, 2021

The Teardrop Top

Introducing my newest crochet design, the Teardrop Top for all sizes. There are a lot of cute crochet top patterns out there for the small and skinny, but not very many for the gals with bigger breasts. Upon further research, I found out that the average bra size in the US is a 36DD! This is bigger than I thought and I wanted to design a top that would fit all sizes and also be comfortable for those of us that have large breasts. I bypassed the halter top design so there would be less pressure on the neck, the...

The "Outlander" Shawl

Just to be honest, I haven't seen Outlander yet, but this TV show inspired shawl was a special request from a friend of the family. With a little creative freedom, I choose my favorite earth toned yarns and went big! I used a basic triangle shawl pattern in double crochet. This is fundamentally a one row repeat pattern, with the exception that I mixed in a few rows of X stitches, or criss cross stitches, to give it a little texture and some small eyelets. The shawl is over 50" long but the top edge can be folded over for an extra thick...

The 2020 Temperature Blanket

Congratulations! If you are reading this, you have survived the year 2020. This new year is especially exciting as it means I have completed my first ever crochet temperature blanket. It was last New Years that I heard about temperature blankets and was so inspired to start one immediately for what felt like would be an iconic year. There are many ways to do a temperature blanket but this is the way I did mine. I picked the daily high temperature because it is a consistent and exact recorded number. I tried at first to do the average temperature, but that...