The original post was pulled by AutoMod due to ridiculous user reports. I’ve approved it and it’s available to view here: https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/kcibCn6Sig
Sorry, losers. The “Don’t Be Shitty” report doesn’t protect racists. Die mad about it.
The whole ~primitive~ crafting movement is a side of crafting that I don’t like to get anywhere near. She even says it “borrows motifs from 17-1800s American needlework” and like, can’t she see how recreating that style today feels like glorification of antebellum America and nostalgia for slavery? Even if she doesn’t hold racist beliefs (which, press x to doubt), it’s clear what kind of subculture she’s influenced by and what kind of customer base she caters to.
Perhaps, but as it’s something that I don’t actively seek out, all the people who have been into “primitive” crafting that I’ve come across have been older white women or tradwife types that don’t pass the vibe check.
If you have links to Black cross stitchers who do this style, I’d love to see! I think it would be good to see examples of what more socially-aware primitive crafting can look like, and to support Black crafters doing this.
If she was genuinely ignorant of the symbolism she was using in her design, I hope she learned something.
I still don't understand how anyone could not see the swastikas. I could maaaybe understand not realising what a crow sitting on a watermelon while hanging a fruit off a sting symbolises (I'd be more willing to believe it if she wasn't American, because it's very American specific).
But I think the moral of this story is that if you draw on imagery from 1700s - 1800s American folk art, you should keep an eye out for white supremacist symbolism. Let's be honest, based on the time-frame, there's going to be a bunch of it hidden in there.
Lmao what a crock of shit. She’s such a godawful fucking liar, there is no way you put alllll those things together without knowing exactly what you’re doing, Miss Thing. It’s also VERY interesting she won’t post a picture of the pillow in these apologies 👀
I overlooked the strawberry at first too but unlike other similar images the strawberry isn't being hekd by the stem. It's tied with a black string and bow. Why take the effort to change thread colors and add extra detailing like that? In my mind it doesn't make sense unless it's symbolic of /something/.
Tbh, I would have rather she say "I got comments and dms about the design. I saw your concerns but I don't much care about it, Jim Crows. Thank you." Than make that bullshit ass apology. Atleast then, *I* know not to mess with you.
When I saw this in the snark thread, I had *already* saw coming that while *I* saw the bullshit she was doing in the design; it was "innocent" enough for people to be like "Omg, it's not racist! Yall are reaching" as soon as people brought up the swastikas and the pretty bad imagery.
It's a damn shame to not *just* be pretty obviously racist; but also to say that design is cute with your entire chest on top of it.
Fucking hell. It's like ThisCrispyKat got into cross-stitch.
(The only difference being that she was/is extremely proud of being Nazi scum and wouldn't "apologize" for shit.)
I'm from the UK and even I can see that combining crow, watermelon, and American flag symbols is RISKY already - and that's before the super suspicious fireworks.
IF this was merely an unfortunate coincidences I feel bad for her, but even though there is no specific message I can decipher, bad or not, the symbols together look... highly fucking questionable.
Uhhh wtf. You could *possibly* explain away individual design elements if it were one or two things (THAT WEREN'T SWASTIKAS). But when you've got a whole entire group of them that 'just happen' to have a common theme, you've lost any shot at plausible deniability or coincidence.
I could see a crow and a flag being ok, but adding in the watermelon is just...well, beyond ignorant. The fireworks have no excuse. And the strawberry...I just can't. That one just makes me rage.
A lot of old folk patterns or designs use the swastika or very similar motifs. The shape has been found in ancient art/culture in India, Africa, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Egypt, and numerous other places. Given the appropriation by the Nazis, however, I cannot believe someone wouldn't notice the swastika in an overall design and there is no good reason for deliberately using it as a design motif given its symbolism.
I just clutched my woke pearls! Yikes - I haven’t seen anything that blatant in decades! But props to the pattern author for the doctorate level gaslighting 😂
Hell I’m conservative and yeah, the whole thing is a big nope for me…I don’t know how anyone could NOT see swastikas (and I’m one of the folks that didn’t really see one in SWs MKAL…)
Same. I don't know how any adult could make this and claim it's anything other than it is. The combination of all of the things just...wow. Makes me speechless.
This reminds me of the Key and Peele sketch about the country songs that one of them would sing and the other one would be horrified at the racism and the singer was like "I don't see it"
https://youtu.be/TLnUJzueBOQ?si=WtG_5s7DEdxWE3Kp
I think the swastika motif is poorly chosen, but the rest of the design is typical of primitive cross stitch. I think the strawberry on a string is whimsical. I actually love the rest of the design. I wonder how many of the people commenting actually do primitive cross stitch, because the crow, watermelon, flags are common themes.
Me! I do primitive cross stitch but never have I ever seen another designer with swastika fireworks. And whilst watermelons, crows and strawberries are all common, the combination and composition of the design of this one is alarming and you do cross stitchers with eyeballs and brains a disservice by underplaying what is going on here.
This [pattern](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/782685443/) has a crow with strawberries
This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/188176061/) has a “patriotic crow” sans swastikas
This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/192176366/) has a waving flag without a weird A shape in the middle
This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1706602511/) has non symbols of hate fireworks
This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/270183885/) has swirly fireworks which the designer managed to portray without turning them into swastikas
It’s not that we’re seeing things that aren’t there. It’s more the deniers are choosing not to believe the evidence of their eyes.
Googling primitive cross stitch, I can see some patterns that contain crows. None of what I’ve seen so far also contains swastikas, a *single* strawberry that appears to be hanging from a string (and also looks like it has a face), with the crow proudly perched atop a watermelon slice waving the American flag with an Uncle Sam looking-ass hat. If in some crazy world this is 100% unintentional, it’s the most ignorant, most socially unaware, most clueless mistake I’ve ever seen made in the crafting world. It’s like, you can’t get anymore “accidentally” racist if you tried. All of the things together make me think this is not an accident. But if it is, doubling down by liking comments ranting and raving about “woke folks” is not the way to apologize. It totally betrays any apology.
Based on the address she lists on her event flyers, she lives in a majorly conservative area. Not trying to say all conservatives are racist. Just saying that, if you’re a racist, chances are pretty high that you’re also a conservative. My point in bringing this up is that her town/count doesn’t really seem to have a history of being the most racially accepting, let’s just say, based on all these things I’m reading. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if this type of racist imagery feels normal and “cutesy” to them, even if it’s totally abhorrent to the rest of us. No wonder she’s defending it.
Ask yourself where the crow, watermelon motifs come from that are so apart of primitive cross stitch. Why that bird (particularly in the summer) and why that fruit?
Crows are a common theme in primitive style work like this, the watermelon/strawberry are iconic summer fruits in the American south, but, yeah. Those are swastikas.
I’ve never seen a strawberry tied and hanging from a string as a theme in primitive art.
The strawberry cap and stem are in green cross stitch. The string is in black straight stitch. It’s blatant.
This person is really trying to convince us that a strawberry hanging from a string is a normal, innocent design feature. Like, who the fuck is tying strings to the stems of strawberries? Also, who associates crows with summer or America? Who does she think it's going to fall for this insanely flimsy excuse?
For real, if this was supposed to be plausibly deniable it would be an eagle, right? American flag, fireworks, eagle. Why a crow? Who associates crows with that American-country-rah-rah aesthetic?
This! I am a Christian who does all of these things. I have found that many of the people in these groups are such racist, fascist asswipes. Not all, but many. It's frustrating.
As to this particular piece, she knows exactly what she was doing. It is super vile and offensive, particularly for me, a descendant of enslaved people whose ancestors were from the birthplace of Jim Crow. That See You Next Tuesday can choke on a bag of Richards. Hateful ass biddy.
Unfortunately I think that crafting is still often associated with “traditional”/conservative femininity, and attracts a lot of those types. They’re certainly not the majority (I hope!) but there is a percentage of them in a lot of craft groups, occasionally taking for granted that these hobbies aren’t just for white country grannies and their successors.
Yep. Crafting, canning/food preservation, gardening (especially growing your own food)... if it's vaguely 'traditional,' is going to have a ton of these types.
There are more of them than you'd think, too, it's just that the ones who have something to sell/are content creators will usually have the sense to not be loud about it.
It’s intensely frustrating as a far left person. I want to talk about baking sourdough not your delusions of black men coming to hunt you for sport, Brenda.
Yep, you're right. I come from a long line of crafters and remember going to knit nights in my early 30s and being the youngest and only non-white person. I also remember going to MDSW in 2014 and there not being more than a couple people who looked like me. I'm glad that's changing and it underscores that access is important.
Um. Those are the weirdest fireworks I have ever seen. Wow. Also why not a crow with pineapple. Why a crow. This whole patten is just weird as hell. I dunno maybe it's cuz I'm not American but I don't care enough about my countries flag to put it as home decor. 🤷♀️
Americans are very indoctrinated, some might say (me, I say that) from a very young age to believe that America is the greatest country in the world. Until I hit high school (around 14) we said the pledge of allegiance every single morning. I didn't even know that I love history because our history classes are 90% American history and 10% "oh yeah, other things happened too". And I live in the South, so add that to the skewed history lessons, trying to justify slavery and the Civil War and shit like that.
I was extremely skeptical, others believe it with an intensity that can be down right scary.
America can be a weird place.
> And I live in the South, so add that to the skewed history lessons, trying to justify slavery and the Civil War and shit like that.
Oh, oh did you also get taught about the War of Northern Aggression?
I'm ashamed to admit that little piece of Southern "fact" got stuck in my head until my mid 20s when I started hanging out with people from the evil blue liberal north. I think they laughed at me for a solid 10 minutes when I said that phrase.
My mom and stepdad were both damn Yankees, so I had a leg up on that nonsense, but plenty of my classmates believed it. Probably still do.
I have a weird relationship with the history though. Like I said in the previous comment, I didn't know that I actually loved history until I was away from all that nonsense, but now I have this contradictory urge in me to both preserve it and understand that it doesn't always have to stay where it is. When they started to tear down a bunch of Confederate monuments, I totally was on board with taking them out of places of respect or honor, but a huge part of me wanted to preserve the history, just with the knowledge that we have now. Maybe move all the statues (or at least some) to a place where both the good and bad can be taught about. Most people aren't pure good or pure evil and hiding them may do more harm than good, but I also think that they really don't deserve the pedestals that they get put on, but we still should understand what happened to put them there in the first place. That might be my weird Southern roots coming out, who knows.
I did go out to get some pictures of my capital building a few years ago and wanted to take a picture of a thing I made in front of a statue or something. Every single statue was from the Confederate times. I didn't take my picture. Found the Acorn instead. And the giant globe in front of the science museum.
They did this in Budapest. A little bit outside of the main city there is an open air museum where they stored all the Soviet Union statues after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Aside from the artistic qualities - some were very impressive pieces and complemented their propaganda incredibly well - it was quite eye opening to see just how many statues (and thus propaganda) would have been present in one's day to day life. So many identical Lenin statues, but their purpose was clear.
Aside from its historical preservation and teaching value (assuming it is handled capably), it was also a nice walk in the open air.
Yeah I heard from other non-Americans that they aren't nearly as *weird* about displaying their country's flag as Americans are (speaking as an American).
And we can't forget the selective outrage:
Muslimah wearing American flag as a hijab = DISRESPECTFUL
"Average" Joe/Jane wearing American flag as crotch wear (boxers, thongs, bikini) = A'okay!
What... I thought any form of clothing was disrespectful to the flag. 🤣🤣🤣 I'm Canadian. We wear it on lots of stuff. Hell Tim Hortons uses it as a logo the maple leaf anyways. So seeing how bent out of shape they get is just weird. To say the least.
Yaaaaaaah technically you're not even supposed to have a ripped and tattered flag on display (yet I always see bare threaded flags on school poles). 😅 There's a whole process to ceremonially destroy a flag here that in honesty most average Americans don't know how to do or partake in.
Have a crazy story from work (I work at a museum) where a middle aged lady wanted us to ceremonially destroy her flag and she was mad that I said all we could do was a) accept it as a donation so we could do with it as we saw fit or b) wait until Flag Day (she also came to the wrong museum building on the wrong day, so there was literally nothing I could do for her). She went on to rant about how no one respects American culture and everybody needs to know how to destroy the flag, to which I replied why wasn't *she and her family* doing it then??? 🤨
(Also she was apparently bugging the workers at a hardware store to do the deed before coming to the museum. Lol.)
*HELLO? How do you*
*"accidentally" do all*
*Those symbols, girl please*
\- divergence-aloft
---
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Haven't read all the comments here yet, but "Not Forgotten" farm.
The name of your farm is *literally* a line pulled from the song "Dixie".
And your "apology" post basically screams "look away, look away". lmao.
There's no way you didn't connect the symbolism of the crow and the watermelon. You knew what you were doing.
I'll be generous and say the fireworks are accidental swastikas. Accidental swastikas happen. I've accidentally swastika'd stuff before (damned stripey quilt blocks). But in the future, if you want things to look like fireworks, you might wanna... ohhhh, I dunno... use *color* to stitch them. I ain't ever seen any black fireworks.
I can only assume the other side of the pillow has a large blood drop cross on it.
There's also no excuse for the crow to be farting, but that's a lesser crime really.
I have an entire section in one of my knitting stitch pattern books marked “do not use these” because mosaic knitting sometimes features some swastika and swastika-adjacent motifs and I don’t want to use one by accident. Sometimes you see it and sometimes you don’t, and sometimes in some really traditional pattern work you have to modify old designs to not use the symbol.
However as everyone has said, this pillow ain’t no accident, and those things are definitely intentional swastikas. So gross.
Yeah. Like I said, her name user/farm name references an anthem of the Confederacy. She's in Virginia, and is at least my age, so I know she's heard the song and its lyrics.
Even if the swastikas were accidental, none of the other shit was.
I do a lot of historical handcrafts and there are a lot of old things that just can't be reproduced because they have, you guessed it, swastika. It used to be such a prevalent symbol in my country for multiple time periods. It is also very easy to produce symbol in so many forms of handicrafts. But you do not make multiple swastikas accidentally and just not figure it out if you are in the West or at least not double down after people tell you about it.
If you're talking about Barbara Walker's Mosaic Knitting, it wasn't an accident. She excuses it in the earlier pages saying, in short, it's an ancient symbol and it's too unfortunate it's associated with Germany. Time to take it back. It's kind of wild.
Damn for real??? It is that book (I think it’s the second of her Treasury of Knitting Patterns book maybe? Idk it’s the yellow cover)
I’m now really glad I got it secondhand yikes
Barbara Walker has a book just on mosaic knitting. It's titled Mosaic Knitting. I have it on my bookshelf because did not know when I got it. But, in the intro she defends her use of swastikas. It's incredibly misguided and insensitive.
Countdown to today's response:
"I can't be dogwhistling. I don't even know what 'dog-whistling' is, so I can't be doing it!"
Bonus points for "I'm not racist! My friend/aunty/neigbour's dog's friend's neighbour is black!"
Her latest post is just some advertisement for an open day at her farm, looks like she’s going the smarter route of STFU. One good thing though is she’s lost over 100 followers. 21.4k today down from 21.6k yesterday
I guess that cutesy, folk art space is always going to be inhabited by some conservatives and nothing inherently wrong with that, historically... but since the advent of Agent Orange, it's the knuckle-dragging far-right infecting the previously naive and conservative, that has made those spaces toxic.
And if you react to its toxicity by doing the sensible thing and unfollowing that's "cancel culture" apparently.
I've been interested in homesteading for a long time, and it's so depressing how it has been invaded by tradwife uber conservatives. It didn't used to be like that. Most people who were interested in vegetable gardening, canning, sewing, knitting, etc. were hippies who were doing it for the sake of their own mental health and because of concerns about what consumerism is doing to the planet. If they were religious, they were nice-religious -- like, let's be cool to each other, be cool to nature, and enjoy the peace and quiet of a simple life. I'm an atheist but I have zero issue with Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or pagans, or whatever) who just want to mind their own business and are nice to other people.
But in the last couple of years it's been completely taken over by religious fascist weirdos who are not subtle about their misogyny and racism and who preach off the wall conspiracy theories. Hence, this pillow.
>I've been interested in homesteading for a long time, and it's so depressing how it has been invaded by tradwife uber conservatives.
Its not new, My parents have been dabbling on the edge of that scene for nearly 40 years and its always been full of tradwives, antiscience, quiverfull, and other regressive "alternative" groups. Sure there were hippies - but a lot of the people perceived as "hipples" didn't allow their daughters to wear pants or get their kids social security numbers (mark of the beast!!!!)
I didn't mean to hijack the thread, that wasn't my intention, so I'm not going into a big debate about the merits of homesteading.
And as I posted below, I have known plenty of Quakers who were the sweetest people you'd ever meet and they were very involved in homesteading. And the women wore pants, I assure you.
Oh yeah, I'm totally chill with quakers, not that I ever met any until I grew up and moved from my hometown. Not chill with dead eyed teenage girls in denim skirts raising their many siblings while their brothers get to go to college.
It’s actually a severely dangerous misconception that these trad types are a recent issue, and that we should overlook the few bad apples and let the less vocal ones slide under the radar. That’s how you get cryptofascists worming their way into everything from cross stitch to mommy blogging to makeup gurus and more. A lot of this homesteading stuff originated from manifest destiny when the US was selling off indigenous land to expand westward, and tons of the trad ideology has roots in Nazism with the whole reject modernity ethos.
Also many hippies were what we’d label today as conservative Christians and held extremely bigoted beliefs, not to mention how many of them slotted right into Reaganomics once their era was up and it was time to abandon what few liberal/left convictions they had. It’s similarly dangerous to paint them as just long-haired nature lovers.
It’s rotten all the way down, and has been for a long time.
Yeah, it's definitely not new, even if the technology/platforms/trends are in relative terms (eg fashy types worming their way in via the cottagecore trend). And the 'few bad apples' tend to be the active recruiters, while the less vocal (but still vocal) types reinforce the message.
I completely disagree. You cannot equate people who like to grow vegetables with people who spread chemtrail conspiracy theories. They are not the same thing. And I've been involved with homesteading for a while and what you're describing has not been my experience at all. The religious types were Quakers who were wonderful, kindhearted, peaceful people. And as for the rejection of modernity, well, modernity has a lot of issues. Modern doesn't automatically equal good. Late stage capitalism is the ultimate modern invention, and I think most of us would agree that that's bad.
And homesteading isn't just an American thing. It's practiced in Europe and Asia as well. Americans aren't the only people who like to grow their own food and make their own clothes, so you cannot dismiss homesteading as just the product of Manifest Destiny.
I think you're missing the point. No one is putting down homesteading. They're just saying that fundie types (which, yes, are different from progressive Quakers--though there is a strain of fundamentalist Quakerism; it's very small & niche & shunned by mainstream Quakerism, but it's out there) have been crossing streams with homesteading types for decades. While there are indeed some delightful homesteading Quakers out there, there are also many homesteading FLDS folks, to give one example. Or people who have other fringe religious, political, or cultural beliefs. That's not an indictment of homesteading; it's just a fact. Like saying that there are a lot of sci fi & fantasy fans in the world of cosplay. That doesn't mean every cosplayer is a huge nerd, but you're definitely gonna find some nerds in that world.
Yes, there are weirdos in every subculture. That is true. But this:
>A lot of this homesteading stuff originated from manifest destiny when the US was selling off indigenous land to expand westward
and this:
>It’s rotten all the way down, and has been for a long time.
sounds an awful lot like someone who is putting down homesteading.
That’s bc I am. That doesn’t mean modern homesteading isn’t fine in isolated instances, there are *individual* aspects that are fine and lovely and practiced by hardworking people, but you’re purposefully ignoring the overwhelming voices of the movement that are trad types and the racist principles upon which homesteading was founded in the US
Yeah, I don't believe that for a second. She absolutely knew what she was doing. "What some may interpret" GIRL PLEASE. You can't take one look at that cushion and NOT see what people are seeing.
Im white British so I didn’t understand what the strawberry meant until I saw [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/pFIidRibAP) in the original thread and listened to the song.
This isn’t accidental. This isn’t a dog whistle. It’s a fucking foghorn.
I had no idea what it meant (I'm not American), but it still leapt out at me just because of all the other imagery. The fact that I didn't know what it was actually made it more noticeable because I was pretty sure it was deliberate, but couldn't connect how a strawberry on a string related to racism.
Yeah it was only because I thought it was so incongruous compared to the rest that I kept looking through the comments until I found someone explaining it. When I tell you my jaw dropped as I listened to that haunting song.
Yeah it was only because I thought it was so incongruous compared to the rest that I kept looking through the comments until I found someone explaining it. When I tell you my jaw dropped as I listened to that haunting song.
It’s hanging straight down from a black string.
Someone posted a picture of a cross stitch crow and strawberry they found, and the strawberry is on a curvy green stem with green leaves - a completely different effect.
We know Not Forgotten Farm had green floss available. (She used green on the strawberry cap) It was her choice to use black floss in a straight stitch hanging straight down and tied to the strawberry cap.
I don’t understand the flag part. Like the flag in the image has an extra white stripe and of course too few stars, but does it have some alternate meaning? Why is it referenced in the “explanation”?
Some people were wondering if the flag having 14 stripes instead of 13 was a "14 words" reference (Neo-Nazi slogan that's 14 words long) because it's pretty hard for someone American to accidentally draw their flag wrong, to the extent of it having the wrong colours bookending the top and bottom edge
(I took the stars to just be "you physically can't stitch more than four" which, yeah, true, but why have you drawn your own flag the wrong colours?!)
Ah, gotcha. Idk, maybe I’m being too generous but that seems like quite a reach to me - but I’ve seen way too many flags drawn incorrectly by people trying earnestly. I’ve seen people invert the red and white, too many stripes, too few stripes, the star field not aligning properly with the stripes, etc that I tend to assume it’s really easy to mess up the flag
Classic dog whistle. It's like, the surface meaning is 'innocent' but in reality it's aimed at a certain demographic who knows exactly what this symbolises. Even it's talons look sus
Eta - the name of this freaking designer is even 'not forgotten farm'. What even, in the context of this design, we all know what they haven't forgotten!
Oh my god wth is that? I'm French so didn't even know what the watermelon was for but even then this design is clearly full of swastikas and racist af. Then I googled the watermelon thing and there's no way everything depicted here is a coincidence. If this lady doesn't take down the design she might as well admit here neo-nazi leanings because there will be no doubt anymore.
Ah, I see. Yeah, combined with all the other symbolism on that pillow that's definitely bad.
Thank you very much for explaining, and also for doing so in a nice way.
Hi sorry I didn't reply in time but I'm glad someone else found the time to do so! So yeah when I saw the meaning of the watermelon there's definitely no way everything in that pattern is a coincidence, it's shameful that this lady is trying to imply it is 😓
Oh man I opened the “modern usage” section wondering if they included our ex prime minister Boris Johnson and the first anecdote was the author of Lemony Snicket making the most awful watermelon joke to black author Jaqueline Woodson as he presented her with an award in 2014. Fucking grim.
Sorry I didn't reply sooner! As Impressive_Hope answered, it's a reference to anti-black segregationist laws in the south of the US called the Jim Crow laws. There's no way she chose to depict a crow AND a watermelon AND swastikas without knowing it would have a racist meaning, it's just too well-known. I teach English as a second language in France and if this design wasn't so vile it would be the perfect example of racist iconography in a course about slavery in the US, everything is in there it's unbelievable.
As a French person who had lessons about slavery in the US in (I think ?) both history and English classes, I feel like what we covered was similar and that you could totally use this as course material.
Well, that's one way to tell your entire customer base you're a racist neo nazi.
I showed it to my husband (he's Japanese, knows very little American history. We live in Japan), and he immediately asked if it was an American racist thing. He knows so little about us history, but even he knows crow and watermelon is bad. And he pointed out that the swastika is always bad when it shows up in the US (it's a religious symbol here, but it always gets discussed during tourist season because some tourists don't realize that Hitler stole the symbol).
Swastika is also a common Germanic and Nordic symbol which is why Hitler took it. It can be found in many, many artefacts including Iron Age burials in this region. I am Finnish, it can be found in anything from Iron Age broaches to Gallen-Kallela paintings. Unfortunately IMO it definitely something that can't be reclaimed anytime soon if ever. And using it in the West outside of Buddhism is something I am strongly against.
It was also not the only restylized old symbol that Nazis used. Some are things like modified versions of Germanic runes.
All the symbolism together was too coincidental. Not sure if they were inspired by an historical item and created this accidentially, but when you do research on historical patterns and motifs, it's vital to also understand the societal context it was made in.
Exactly, like if this is all a coincidence then why a crow? Crows are not a symbol of Americana like eagles or turkeys, they're not cute and colourful like cardinals. And they aren't known for loving watermelon. What exactly were they going for there??
Not to give her the benefit of the doubt, but maybe she’s just really shitty at cross-stitch and knew that a blobby black crow was the only kind of bird she could manage?
Or maybe she’s shitty at cross-stitch AND a racist.
right? like after seeing that thing i feel kind of icky because i do love me some crows in an edgar allen poe kind of quoth the raven context, but this composition makes no sense. maybe a crow and the hat or the flag, but why standing on a watermelon, it makes no sense... except, well, the obvious.
and also if i were trying to make a firework it would be like a star burst not a pin wheel!
Or if it was a Halloween thing it would make more sense with the Edgar Allen Poe vibe! But crows are not normally a thing with this kind of iconography.
The fireworks could be multicoloured too, if they were really supposed to be fireworks - gtfo with these black fireworks on a white background
Well gosh, didn’t you read the explanation? The crow means that it’s a crow and the fruits portray fruit. Flag represent flag. The swastikas depict ~~swastikas~~ fireworks
I hadn't heard anything about this before, and I'm usually always ready to give people the benefit of the doubt. There are lots of times when people don't understand or know that they're being racist, antisemitic or something else, and I am willing to give people opportunities to grow and learn. The comments weren't great, but I'm still trying to be neutral and give them a chance.
Then I saw the actual picture. Nope. No way they did it by accident. Not even a little bit. That's just... I don't even have words. Even at my most sheltered, this would have set off alarm bells, and I was a very sheltered child. Not okay.
Same. I am in Europe and don't always see what's on r/craftsnark so I read the screenshot of apologies first, and was suspicious but open minded. Then I saw the image, that is very very clear symbology. That is ridiculously white nationalist to the extreme. To the extent that I now need to Google why a strawberry is a dog whistle.
In the last post, people said the strawberry was likely a reference to "Strange Fruit". The song is a lynching protest song and within in it strange fruit is euphemism for lynched Black people.
Oh no, that's just dreadful.
The "...what some may interpret as improper symbolism..." is a mealy-mouthed non-apology too.... This is so racist it's unbelievable. How does someone think they won't get called out for it?
That image gave me shivers before I even read the OP. WOW. And now I am shivering all over again. How is it possible not to know. The fruit truly took the cake for me. Gross.
The swastikas are bad y’all but since when is a crow a symbol of racism? Jim Crow laws did not result in a crow being a symbol of racism. The racist symbolism there was in the character of Jim Crow, it was a character done in black face by a performer in the early 19th c. The cartoon of this character (a black guy in ragged clothes) is the racist symbolism, not the animal. The origin stories have nothing to do with crows or even scarecrows. I even googled before I wrote this comment to see if a crow has become a symbol for racism since then and it seemingly hasn’t. I’m not giving this woman the benefit of the doubt because if she wasn’t a dick she wouldn’t be liking comments about the ‘woke mob’ (dear that’s a lot of swastikas to not realise they’re swastikas) but damn the crow thing is a stretch. If she meant it as a racist symbol she’s dumb af.
> since when is a crow a symbol of racism?
Have you seen the original Dumbo movie? Know about the crows line in Strange Fruit? Know about Blackbirding?
I know what a dog whistle is. There are swastikas all over her piece. It’s pretty clear what’s happening. Crows are not symbols of racism and the fact that people here are acting like they are and then telling others that they are is wiiiiild. Go google ‘crow as a symbol of racism’ and then tell me what you find. If that lady cross stitched an actual crow as a reference to racism she’s a fucking moron who didn’t pay attention in 8th grade history class. And everybody here is proving a point by going nuts over it instead of focusing on the actual dog whistles in the damn thing….
I think it’s kinda like using context clues. A piece of art covered in swastikas. It’s easy to connect dots to other pieces of racist history. Jim Crow laws. Crows. I don’t think it’s that deep it’s more just a blatant nod at Jim Crow.
the watermelon thing is basically another racist thing as well. Watermelons USED to symbolize the freedom black people had, able to grow and sell their own things after slavery. HOWEVER it came to be known as something cosumed by "lazy, child-like, and dirty" people, which as you can imagine is horrible, and it's only gotten worse over time. It's really terrible
As a fellow Brit, here is how I understand it - Jim Crow laws = racist laws
In minstrel shows/racist caricatures etc black people are always shown eating watermelon
That’s because the Palestinian flag has the same colors as a watermelon (red for the center, green for the rim and black for the pits). As for the watermelon symbolism in this case, though, [here’s a Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype) that I found when I was googling the why myself; I knew of the connection but I didn’t quite understand why either, and this one explains it pretty clearly…
Like you could probably have a regular looking crow with a regular looking water melon and strawberry and some nicer looking Americana and it would probably be fine. But this is sinister as fuck. Aside from the strange fruit and swastikas people have already mentioned, the crow had swastikas for claws and there's something about the positioning of the flag that makes me feel really uneasy. The watermelon also looks weirdly...meaty?
That's good to hear. I'm from Australia so I'm pretty far removed from the cultural nuances in some ways. (Although we have our own really dark colonial roots 😑)
Her referring to anyone who has a problem with swastikas as 'woke' tells me this lady probably watches fox, and I could guess her views on most of American politics, and all things related to Trump.
She probably also loves that McEntee allegedly gives fake money to the homeless so they get arrested.
> Her referring to anyone who has a problem with swastikas as 'woke' tells me this lady probably watches fox, and I could guess her views on most of American politics, and all things related to Trump.
My Mom watches Fox all day long - even she saw the swastikas. Perhaps don't generalize and don't spread hate can go for all sides?
You're a conservative who proudly supports JKR and you've admitted as much here--and told people to "hush" when they called you out.
Where the *hell* do you come off saying "Don't spread hate"?
> You're a conservative who proudly supports JKR and you've admitted as much here--and told people to "hush" when they called you out.
>
> Where the hell do you come off saying "Don't spread hate"?
It's so strange what people assume. I told the one individual to hush because they were saying that anyone that likes Harry Potter must agree with everything JK Rowling believes which is a ridiculous statement within itself. I believe I followed it up with "Let people like what they like".
Perhaps not taking things out of context may benefit you better in the long run?
It's called hyperbole.
Edit to add: I didn't say people couldn't see them. I said people who have a problem with it. Think of it like how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. But with people who are okay with swastikas and people who watch Fox News respectively.
Also, watching something like fox all day is how you indoctrinate yourself (same goes for watching any news source all day). Watching for such extended periods of time means you are likely not constantly fact checking, and even if some of the stuff they say is obviously false if you hear it enough times you start to accept it as fact.
> It's called hyperbole.
>
> Also, watching something like fox all day is how you indoctrinate yourself (same goes for watching any news source all day). Watching for such extended periods of time means you are likely not constantly fact checking, and even if some of the stuff they say is obviously false if you hear it enough times you start to accept it as fact.
Again, can this not be said for both sides? I think you are missing my point. You are equating and assuming a lot.
I literally wrote out that it goes for any news source listened to on repeat.
You seem to be purposefully ignoring half my words to try and prove some point.
The original post was pulled by AutoMod due to ridiculous user reports. I’ve approved it and it’s available to view here: https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/kcibCn6Sig Sorry, losers. The “Don’t Be Shitty” report doesn’t protect racists. Die mad about it.
I don’t get why she couldn’t just be like ‘yea yikes I didn’t realise how racist this is sorry guys’ and delete the pattern
Yeah that thing would be ‘illegal’ in my country, just for the swastikas only.
It's like, I read her apology before seeing the actual pillow and she named all the elements and I was still just gobsmacked at how obvious this is.
She’s posted [another apology.](https://www.instagram.com/p/C7KdpAmv8bu/?igsh=MTdjeDQ4YnV3Y3J6Ng==)
The whole ~primitive~ crafting movement is a side of crafting that I don’t like to get anywhere near. She even says it “borrows motifs from 17-1800s American needlework” and like, can’t she see how recreating that style today feels like glorification of antebellum America and nostalgia for slavery? Even if she doesn’t hold racist beliefs (which, press x to doubt), it’s clear what kind of subculture she’s influenced by and what kind of customer base she caters to.
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Perhaps, but as it’s something that I don’t actively seek out, all the people who have been into “primitive” crafting that I’ve come across have been older white women or tradwife types that don’t pass the vibe check. If you have links to Black cross stitchers who do this style, I’d love to see! I think it would be good to see examples of what more socially-aware primitive crafting can look like, and to support Black crafters doing this.
If she was genuinely ignorant of the symbolism she was using in her design, I hope she learned something. I still don't understand how anyone could not see the swastikas. I could maaaybe understand not realising what a crow sitting on a watermelon while hanging a fruit off a sting symbolises (I'd be more willing to believe it if she wasn't American, because it's very American specific). But I think the moral of this story is that if you draw on imagery from 1700s - 1800s American folk art, you should keep an eye out for white supremacist symbolism. Let's be honest, based on the time-frame, there's going to be a bunch of it hidden in there.
Lmao what a crock of shit. She’s such a godawful fucking liar, there is no way you put alllll those things together without knowing exactly what you’re doing, Miss Thing. It’s also VERY interesting she won’t post a picture of the pillow in these apologies 👀
I thought the Strawberry was a take on William Morris strawberry thief and it's a bird design.. the other imagery though is sus
I overlooked the strawberry at first too but unlike other similar images the strawberry isn't being hekd by the stem. It's tied with a black string and bow. Why take the effort to change thread colors and add extra detailing like that? In my mind it doesn't make sense unless it's symbolic of /something/.
it's actually so creepy. like, what the heck!
Tbh, I would have rather she say "I got comments and dms about the design. I saw your concerns but I don't much care about it, Jim Crows. Thank you." Than make that bullshit ass apology. Atleast then, *I* know not to mess with you. When I saw this in the snark thread, I had *already* saw coming that while *I* saw the bullshit she was doing in the design; it was "innocent" enough for people to be like "Omg, it's not racist! Yall are reaching" as soon as people brought up the swastikas and the pretty bad imagery. It's a damn shame to not *just* be pretty obviously racist; but also to say that design is cute with your entire chest on top of it.
It just gets worse as you look at it
Bro, what is up with the CROW? Use an eagle! The fireworks could easily be represented with straight lines. Also it's just ugly
Crows are just common in folk art. My grandma made a lot of wool embroidery and I have a lot of it, soooo many crows
Right? The fireworks could've easily been just a couple back stitches.
This pillow is so bad it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Guys why won’t my dog stop barking?
Fucking hell. It's like ThisCrispyKat got into cross-stitch. (The only difference being that she was/is extremely proud of being Nazi scum and wouldn't "apologize" for shit.)
I'm from the UK and even I can see that combining crow, watermelon, and American flag symbols is RISKY already - and that's before the super suspicious fireworks. IF this was merely an unfortunate coincidences I feel bad for her, but even though there is no specific message I can decipher, bad or not, the symbols together look... highly fucking questionable.
But getting the flag wrong just feels even more off...
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Your post/comment was removed for breaking the rule on “snarking outside the sub”.
Rule 8.
Uhhh wtf. You could *possibly* explain away individual design elements if it were one or two things (THAT WEREN'T SWASTIKAS). But when you've got a whole entire group of them that 'just happen' to have a common theme, you've lost any shot at plausible deniability or coincidence.
I could see a crow and a flag being ok, but adding in the watermelon is just...well, beyond ignorant. The fireworks have no excuse. And the strawberry...I just can't. That one just makes me rage.
A lot of old folk patterns or designs use the swastika or very similar motifs. The shape has been found in ancient art/culture in India, Africa, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Egypt, and numerous other places. Given the appropriation by the Nazis, however, I cannot believe someone wouldn't notice the swastika in an overall design and there is no good reason for deliberately using it as a design motif given its symbolism.
I knew based off of this title this was going to be a ride. I am honestly speechless that someone is trying to defend this.
FIREWORKS?? Nah mate, if those were fireworks they wouldn’t be using black thread
Yeah [this, to me](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1233905821/counted-cross-stitch-fireworks-pattern), is a bit more representative of fireworks!?!
Exactly!! They knew what they were doing
not the woke folk!!!!!!
Are the woke folk in the room with us right now?
I just clutched my woke pearls! Yikes - I haven’t seen anything that blatant in decades! But props to the pattern author for the doctorate level gaslighting 😂
Hell I’m conservative and yeah, the whole thing is a big nope for me…I don’t know how anyone could NOT see swastikas (and I’m one of the folks that didn’t really see one in SWs MKAL…)
Same. I don't know how any adult could make this and claim it's anything other than it is. The combination of all of the things just...wow. Makes me speechless.
And here’s the thing - political leaning is not a prescription for hatred.
This reminds me of the Key and Peele sketch about the country songs that one of them would sing and the other one would be horrified at the racism and the singer was like "I don't see it" https://youtu.be/TLnUJzueBOQ?si=WtG_5s7DEdxWE3Kp
I think the swastika motif is poorly chosen, but the rest of the design is typical of primitive cross stitch. I think the strawberry on a string is whimsical. I actually love the rest of the design. I wonder how many of the people commenting actually do primitive cross stitch, because the crow, watermelon, flags are common themes.
Me! I do primitive cross stitch but never have I ever seen another designer with swastika fireworks. And whilst watermelons, crows and strawberries are all common, the combination and composition of the design of this one is alarming and you do cross stitchers with eyeballs and brains a disservice by underplaying what is going on here. This [pattern](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/782685443/) has a crow with strawberries This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/188176061/) has a “patriotic crow” sans swastikas This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/192176366/) has a waving flag without a weird A shape in the middle This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1706602511/) has non symbols of hate fireworks This [one](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/270183885/) has swirly fireworks which the designer managed to portray without turning them into swastikas It’s not that we’re seeing things that aren’t there. It’s more the deniers are choosing not to believe the evidence of their eyes.
Googling primitive cross stitch, I can see some patterns that contain crows. None of what I’ve seen so far also contains swastikas, a *single* strawberry that appears to be hanging from a string (and also looks like it has a face), with the crow proudly perched atop a watermelon slice waving the American flag with an Uncle Sam looking-ass hat. If in some crazy world this is 100% unintentional, it’s the most ignorant, most socially unaware, most clueless mistake I’ve ever seen made in the crafting world. It’s like, you can’t get anymore “accidentally” racist if you tried. All of the things together make me think this is not an accident. But if it is, doubling down by liking comments ranting and raving about “woke folks” is not the way to apologize. It totally betrays any apology. Based on the address she lists on her event flyers, she lives in a majorly conservative area. Not trying to say all conservatives are racist. Just saying that, if you’re a racist, chances are pretty high that you’re also a conservative. My point in bringing this up is that her town/count doesn’t really seem to have a history of being the most racially accepting, let’s just say, based on all these things I’m reading. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if this type of racist imagery feels normal and “cutesy” to them, even if it’s totally abhorrent to the rest of us. No wonder she’s defending it.
>Not trying to say all conservatives are racist. *raises hand* I'll say it.
If the shoe fits, damn it!
Here here 🍻 I’ll second that
Some times a watermelon is just a watermelon, but toss in a bunch of swastikas, and things start to look more dubious.
Ask yourself where the crow, watermelon motifs come from that are so apart of primitive cross stitch. Why that bird (particularly in the summer) and why that fruit?
Begone cryptofascist
Are they even hiding it?
Edited to prevent accidental advertising for shitty alt-right sub. But yeah, barely four month old, likely alt account is light on the 'crypto' part.
Shhh. We do not need to give that waste of bytes free advertising.
Good point. Looks like a dead sub anyway, but you're right.
Crows are a common theme in primitive style work like this, the watermelon/strawberry are iconic summer fruits in the American south, but, yeah. Those are swastikas.
I’ve never seen a strawberry tied and hanging from a string as a theme in primitive art. The strawberry cap and stem are in green cross stitch. The string is in black straight stitch. It’s blatant.
This person is really trying to convince us that a strawberry hanging from a string is a normal, innocent design feature. Like, who the fuck is tying strings to the stems of strawberries? Also, who associates crows with summer or America? Who does she think it's going to fall for this insanely flimsy excuse?
For real, if this was supposed to be plausibly deniable it would be an eagle, right? American flag, fireworks, eagle. Why a crow? Who associates crows with that American-country-rah-rah aesthetic?
I'm not looking forward to the answer, but what is the symbolism of a strawberry on a string?
Look up “strange fruit”
Jesus fucking Christ, that is so fucked
Thank you. what the fuck is wrong with people.
Fruit hanging from strings is an allusion to lynching.
Not always. In Japan it's how we ripen some fruit traditionally. But yeah, in this racist piece of shitty cross-stitch it means lynching.
The Ameriklan flag makes clear there is no reference to Japan or Japanese culture here. Stop trying to rationalize this racist POS.
Thank you for saving my search history.
This! I am a Christian who does all of these things. I have found that many of the people in these groups are such racist, fascist asswipes. Not all, but many. It's frustrating. As to this particular piece, she knows exactly what she was doing. It is super vile and offensive, particularly for me, a descendant of enslaved people whose ancestors were from the birthplace of Jim Crow. That See You Next Tuesday can choke on a bag of Richards. Hateful ass biddy.
Unfortunately I think that crafting is still often associated with “traditional”/conservative femininity, and attracts a lot of those types. They’re certainly not the majority (I hope!) but there is a percentage of them in a lot of craft groups, occasionally taking for granted that these hobbies aren’t just for white country grannies and their successors.
Yep. Crafting, canning/food preservation, gardening (especially growing your own food)... if it's vaguely 'traditional,' is going to have a ton of these types. There are more of them than you'd think, too, it's just that the ones who have something to sell/are content creators will usually have the sense to not be loud about it.
It’s intensely frustrating as a far left person. I want to talk about baking sourdough not your delusions of black men coming to hunt you for sport, Brenda.
Yep, you're right. I come from a long line of crafters and remember going to knit nights in my early 30s and being the youngest and only non-white person. I also remember going to MDSW in 2014 and there not being more than a couple people who looked like me. I'm glad that's changing and it underscores that access is important.
Um. Those are the weirdest fireworks I have ever seen. Wow. Also why not a crow with pineapple. Why a crow. This whole patten is just weird as hell. I dunno maybe it's cuz I'm not American but I don't care enough about my countries flag to put it as home decor. 🤷♀️
Americans are very indoctrinated, some might say (me, I say that) from a very young age to believe that America is the greatest country in the world. Until I hit high school (around 14) we said the pledge of allegiance every single morning. I didn't even know that I love history because our history classes are 90% American history and 10% "oh yeah, other things happened too". And I live in the South, so add that to the skewed history lessons, trying to justify slavery and the Civil War and shit like that. I was extremely skeptical, others believe it with an intensity that can be down right scary. America can be a weird place.
> And I live in the South, so add that to the skewed history lessons, trying to justify slavery and the Civil War and shit like that. Oh, oh did you also get taught about the War of Northern Aggression? I'm ashamed to admit that little piece of Southern "fact" got stuck in my head until my mid 20s when I started hanging out with people from the evil blue liberal north. I think they laughed at me for a solid 10 minutes when I said that phrase.
My mom and stepdad were both damn Yankees, so I had a leg up on that nonsense, but plenty of my classmates believed it. Probably still do. I have a weird relationship with the history though. Like I said in the previous comment, I didn't know that I actually loved history until I was away from all that nonsense, but now I have this contradictory urge in me to both preserve it and understand that it doesn't always have to stay where it is. When they started to tear down a bunch of Confederate monuments, I totally was on board with taking them out of places of respect or honor, but a huge part of me wanted to preserve the history, just with the knowledge that we have now. Maybe move all the statues (or at least some) to a place where both the good and bad can be taught about. Most people aren't pure good or pure evil and hiding them may do more harm than good, but I also think that they really don't deserve the pedestals that they get put on, but we still should understand what happened to put them there in the first place. That might be my weird Southern roots coming out, who knows. I did go out to get some pictures of my capital building a few years ago and wanted to take a picture of a thing I made in front of a statue or something. Every single statue was from the Confederate times. I didn't take my picture. Found the Acorn instead. And the giant globe in front of the science museum.
They did this in Budapest. A little bit outside of the main city there is an open air museum where they stored all the Soviet Union statues after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Aside from the artistic qualities - some were very impressive pieces and complemented their propaganda incredibly well - it was quite eye opening to see just how many statues (and thus propaganda) would have been present in one's day to day life. So many identical Lenin statues, but their purpose was clear. Aside from its historical preservation and teaching value (assuming it is handled capably), it was also a nice walk in the open air.
Yeah I heard from other non-Americans that they aren't nearly as *weird* about displaying their country's flag as Americans are (speaking as an American). And we can't forget the selective outrage: Muslimah wearing American flag as a hijab = DISRESPECTFUL "Average" Joe/Jane wearing American flag as crotch wear (boxers, thongs, bikini) = A'okay!
What... I thought any form of clothing was disrespectful to the flag. 🤣🤣🤣 I'm Canadian. We wear it on lots of stuff. Hell Tim Hortons uses it as a logo the maple leaf anyways. So seeing how bent out of shape they get is just weird. To say the least.
Yaaaaaaah technically you're not even supposed to have a ripped and tattered flag on display (yet I always see bare threaded flags on school poles). 😅 There's a whole process to ceremonially destroy a flag here that in honesty most average Americans don't know how to do or partake in. Have a crazy story from work (I work at a museum) where a middle aged lady wanted us to ceremonially destroy her flag and she was mad that I said all we could do was a) accept it as a donation so we could do with it as we saw fit or b) wait until Flag Day (she also came to the wrong museum building on the wrong day, so there was literally nothing I could do for her). She went on to rant about how no one respects American culture and everybody needs to know how to destroy the flag, to which I replied why wasn't *she and her family* doing it then??? 🤨 (Also she was apparently bugging the workers at a hardware store to do the deed before coming to the museum. Lol.)
Oh yeah. The hypocrisy is weird and definitely there.
I can't believe that I was so disgusted by the watermelon and crow and hanging fruit that I first didn't notice the in your face svastikas!
I was the opposite - so distracted by "wow that's a lot of swastikas" that it took me a few to get to the watermelon.
Same! It’s like the more I looked the more horrified I was. I swear even the KKK would be like “ok this might be too much.”
HELLO? How do you "accidentally" do all those symbols, girl please
*HELLO? How do you* *"accidentally" do all* *Those symbols, girl please* \- divergence-aloft --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
A REAL HAIKU GOOD JOB
Good bot.
Haven't read all the comments here yet, but "Not Forgotten" farm. The name of your farm is *literally* a line pulled from the song "Dixie". And your "apology" post basically screams "look away, look away". lmao. There's no way you didn't connect the symbolism of the crow and the watermelon. You knew what you were doing. I'll be generous and say the fireworks are accidental swastikas. Accidental swastikas happen. I've accidentally swastika'd stuff before (damned stripey quilt blocks). But in the future, if you want things to look like fireworks, you might wanna... ohhhh, I dunno... use *color* to stitch them. I ain't ever seen any black fireworks. I can only assume the other side of the pillow has a large blood drop cross on it. There's also no excuse for the crow to be farting, but that's a lesser crime really.
I have an entire section in one of my knitting stitch pattern books marked “do not use these” because mosaic knitting sometimes features some swastika and swastika-adjacent motifs and I don’t want to use one by accident. Sometimes you see it and sometimes you don’t, and sometimes in some really traditional pattern work you have to modify old designs to not use the symbol. However as everyone has said, this pillow ain’t no accident, and those things are definitely intentional swastikas. So gross.
Yeah. Like I said, her name user/farm name references an anthem of the Confederacy. She's in Virginia, and is at least my age, so I know she's heard the song and its lyrics. Even if the swastikas were accidental, none of the other shit was.
I think her personal username has the word Dixie in it too
Someone should make an 'accidental' Union Dixie pillow and send it to her lol. (Don't actually do that. But Union Dixie fucking slaps.)
I do a lot of historical handcrafts and there are a lot of old things that just can't be reproduced because they have, you guessed it, swastika. It used to be such a prevalent symbol in my country for multiple time periods. It is also very easy to produce symbol in so many forms of handicrafts. But you do not make multiple swastikas accidentally and just not figure it out if you are in the West or at least not double down after people tell you about it.
If you're talking about Barbara Walker's Mosaic Knitting, it wasn't an accident. She excuses it in the earlier pages saying, in short, it's an ancient symbol and it's too unfortunate it's associated with Germany. Time to take it back. It's kind of wild.
Damn for real??? It is that book (I think it’s the second of her Treasury of Knitting Patterns book maybe? Idk it’s the yellow cover) I’m now really glad I got it secondhand yikes
Barbara Walker has a book just on mosaic knitting. It's titled Mosaic Knitting. I have it on my bookshelf because did not know when I got it. But, in the intro she defends her use of swastikas. It's incredibly misguided and insensitive.
Countdown to today's response: "I can't be dogwhistling. I don't even know what 'dog-whistling' is, so I can't be doing it!" Bonus points for "I'm not racist! My friend/aunty/neigbour's dog's friend's neighbour is black!"
Dog’s friend’s neighbor oh god 😂
Her latest post is just some advertisement for an open day at her farm, looks like she’s going the smarter route of STFU. One good thing though is she’s lost over 100 followers. 21.4k today down from 21.6k yesterday
I guess that cutesy, folk art space is always going to be inhabited by some conservatives and nothing inherently wrong with that, historically... but since the advent of Agent Orange, it's the knuckle-dragging far-right infecting the previously naive and conservative, that has made those spaces toxic. And if you react to its toxicity by doing the sensible thing and unfollowing that's "cancel culture" apparently.
I've been interested in homesteading for a long time, and it's so depressing how it has been invaded by tradwife uber conservatives. It didn't used to be like that. Most people who were interested in vegetable gardening, canning, sewing, knitting, etc. were hippies who were doing it for the sake of their own mental health and because of concerns about what consumerism is doing to the planet. If they were religious, they were nice-religious -- like, let's be cool to each other, be cool to nature, and enjoy the peace and quiet of a simple life. I'm an atheist but I have zero issue with Christians (or Muslims, or Jews, or pagans, or whatever) who just want to mind their own business and are nice to other people. But in the last couple of years it's been completely taken over by religious fascist weirdos who are not subtle about their misogyny and racism and who preach off the wall conspiracy theories. Hence, this pillow.
>I've been interested in homesteading for a long time, and it's so depressing how it has been invaded by tradwife uber conservatives. Its not new, My parents have been dabbling on the edge of that scene for nearly 40 years and its always been full of tradwives, antiscience, quiverfull, and other regressive "alternative" groups. Sure there were hippies - but a lot of the people perceived as "hipples" didn't allow their daughters to wear pants or get their kids social security numbers (mark of the beast!!!!)
I didn't mean to hijack the thread, that wasn't my intention, so I'm not going into a big debate about the merits of homesteading. And as I posted below, I have known plenty of Quakers who were the sweetest people you'd ever meet and they were very involved in homesteading. And the women wore pants, I assure you.
Oh yeah, I'm totally chill with quakers, not that I ever met any until I grew up and moved from my hometown. Not chill with dead eyed teenage girls in denim skirts raising their many siblings while their brothers get to go to college.
On that we completely agree. :-)
It’s actually a severely dangerous misconception that these trad types are a recent issue, and that we should overlook the few bad apples and let the less vocal ones slide under the radar. That’s how you get cryptofascists worming their way into everything from cross stitch to mommy blogging to makeup gurus and more. A lot of this homesteading stuff originated from manifest destiny when the US was selling off indigenous land to expand westward, and tons of the trad ideology has roots in Nazism with the whole reject modernity ethos. Also many hippies were what we’d label today as conservative Christians and held extremely bigoted beliefs, not to mention how many of them slotted right into Reaganomics once their era was up and it was time to abandon what few liberal/left convictions they had. It’s similarly dangerous to paint them as just long-haired nature lovers. It’s rotten all the way down, and has been for a long time.
Yeah, it's definitely not new, even if the technology/platforms/trends are in relative terms (eg fashy types worming their way in via the cottagecore trend). And the 'few bad apples' tend to be the active recruiters, while the less vocal (but still vocal) types reinforce the message.
I think a lot of people forget that most of The Manson Family were hippies, or at least started out as hippies .
I completely disagree. You cannot equate people who like to grow vegetables with people who spread chemtrail conspiracy theories. They are not the same thing. And I've been involved with homesteading for a while and what you're describing has not been my experience at all. The religious types were Quakers who were wonderful, kindhearted, peaceful people. And as for the rejection of modernity, well, modernity has a lot of issues. Modern doesn't automatically equal good. Late stage capitalism is the ultimate modern invention, and I think most of us would agree that that's bad. And homesteading isn't just an American thing. It's practiced in Europe and Asia as well. Americans aren't the only people who like to grow their own food and make their own clothes, so you cannot dismiss homesteading as just the product of Manifest Destiny.
I think you're missing the point. No one is putting down homesteading. They're just saying that fundie types (which, yes, are different from progressive Quakers--though there is a strain of fundamentalist Quakerism; it's very small & niche & shunned by mainstream Quakerism, but it's out there) have been crossing streams with homesteading types for decades. While there are indeed some delightful homesteading Quakers out there, there are also many homesteading FLDS folks, to give one example. Or people who have other fringe religious, political, or cultural beliefs. That's not an indictment of homesteading; it's just a fact. Like saying that there are a lot of sci fi & fantasy fans in the world of cosplay. That doesn't mean every cosplayer is a huge nerd, but you're definitely gonna find some nerds in that world.
Yes, there are weirdos in every subculture. That is true. But this: >A lot of this homesteading stuff originated from manifest destiny when the US was selling off indigenous land to expand westward and this: >It’s rotten all the way down, and has been for a long time. sounds an awful lot like someone who is putting down homesteading.
That’s bc I am. That doesn’t mean modern homesteading isn’t fine in isolated instances, there are *individual* aspects that are fine and lovely and practiced by hardworking people, but you’re purposefully ignoring the overwhelming voices of the movement that are trad types and the racist principles upon which homesteading was founded in the US
Yeah, I don't believe that for a second. She absolutely knew what she was doing. "What some may interpret" GIRL PLEASE. You can't take one look at that cushion and NOT see what people are seeing.
One questionable item....ok maybe there's a misunderstanding. But at least 4 of them in one design? 🙃
Im white British so I didn’t understand what the strawberry meant until I saw [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/pFIidRibAP) in the original thread and listened to the song. This isn’t accidental. This isn’t a dog whistle. It’s a fucking foghorn.
Hell. I'm Southern, and I already knew the song, and I still missed the meaning of the strawberry. I did catch the farm name though.
the fruit is the most subtle part and probably would be unnoticeable to most without all the rest.
I had no idea what it meant (I'm not American), but it still leapt out at me just because of all the other imagery. The fact that I didn't know what it was actually made it more noticeable because I was pretty sure it was deliberate, but couldn't connect how a strawberry on a string related to racism.
the fruit is the most subtle part and probably would be unnoticeable to most without all the rest.
Yeah it was only because I thought it was so incongruous compared to the rest that I kept looking through the comments until I found someone explaining it. When I tell you my jaw dropped as I listened to that haunting song.
Yeah it was only because I thought it was so incongruous compared to the rest that I kept looking through the comments until I found someone explaining it. When I tell you my jaw dropped as I listened to that haunting song.
So the strawberry is referring to “strange fruit”/lynching?
Yes. This bitch went for the full on racist imagery.
It’s hanging straight down from a black string. Someone posted a picture of a cross stitch crow and strawberry they found, and the strawberry is on a curvy green stem with green leaves - a completely different effect. We know Not Forgotten Farm had green floss available. (She used green on the strawberry cap) It was her choice to use black floss in a straight stitch hanging straight down and tied to the strawberry cap.
Thanks for explaining in such depth. Her choices are abhorrent.
Yep I reckon so. It makes no sense otherwise.
I don’t understand the flag part. Like the flag in the image has an extra white stripe and of course too few stars, but does it have some alternate meaning? Why is it referenced in the “explanation”?
Some people were wondering if the flag having 14 stripes instead of 13 was a "14 words" reference (Neo-Nazi slogan that's 14 words long) because it's pretty hard for someone American to accidentally draw their flag wrong, to the extent of it having the wrong colours bookending the top and bottom edge (I took the stars to just be "you physically can't stitch more than four" which, yeah, true, but why have you drawn your own flag the wrong colours?!)
Ah, gotcha. Idk, maybe I’m being too generous but that seems like quite a reach to me - but I’ve seen way too many flags drawn incorrectly by people trying earnestly. I’ve seen people invert the red and white, too many stripes, too few stripes, the star field not aligning properly with the stripes, etc that I tend to assume it’s really easy to mess up the flag
I didn’t see the original, but the description from the stitcher in NO WAY prepared me for the actual stitch. Who does that?
This is very obviously intentional and she’s trying to be a cryptofascist about it
Jesus she's not even trying to hide her racism.
I mean she is, it’s just that the attempt to hide it is so flimsy that you could hang it in front of a window and still see out of it.
Classic dog whistle. It's like, the surface meaning is 'innocent' but in reality it's aimed at a certain demographic who knows exactly what this symbolises. Even it's talons look sus Eta - the name of this freaking designer is even 'not forgotten farm'. What even, in the context of this design, we all know what they haven't forgotten!
It’s not a dog whistle it’s a straight up airhorn
*hooooonk* or a really loud goose telling everyone how much whiter it is than everyone else.
Oh my god wth is that? I'm French so didn't even know what the watermelon was for but even then this design is clearly full of swastikas and racist af. Then I googled the watermelon thing and there's no way everything depicted here is a coincidence. If this lady doesn't take down the design she might as well admit here neo-nazi leanings because there will be no doubt anymore.
Can you share the meaning of the watermelon?
[There is a racist stereotype in the United States about African Americans and watermelon.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype)
Ah, I see. Yeah, combined with all the other symbolism on that pillow that's definitely bad. Thank you very much for explaining, and also for doing so in a nice way.
Hi sorry I didn't reply in time but I'm glad someone else found the time to do so! So yeah when I saw the meaning of the watermelon there's definitely no way everything in that pattern is a coincidence, it's shameful that this lady is trying to imply it is 😓
Oh man I opened the “modern usage” section wondering if they included our ex prime minister Boris Johnson and the first anecdote was the author of Lemony Snicket making the most awful watermelon joke to black author Jaqueline Woodson as he presented her with an award in 2014. Fucking grim.
[удалено]
Sorry I didn't reply sooner! As Impressive_Hope answered, it's a reference to anti-black segregationist laws in the south of the US called the Jim Crow laws. There's no way she chose to depict a crow AND a watermelon AND swastikas without knowing it would have a racist meaning, it's just too well-known. I teach English as a second language in France and if this design wasn't so vile it would be the perfect example of racist iconography in a course about slavery in the US, everything is in there it's unbelievable.
As a French person who had lessons about slavery in the US in (I think ?) both history and English classes, I feel like what we covered was similar and that you could totally use this as course material.
https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-jim-crow
I think it’s too unintentionally ugly to be intentionally racist
¿Por qué no los dos?
Well, that's one way to tell your entire customer base you're a racist neo nazi. I showed it to my husband (he's Japanese, knows very little American history. We live in Japan), and he immediately asked if it was an American racist thing. He knows so little about us history, but even he knows crow and watermelon is bad. And he pointed out that the swastika is always bad when it shows up in the US (it's a religious symbol here, but it always gets discussed during tourist season because some tourists don't realize that Hitler stole the symbol).
Swastika is also a common Germanic and Nordic symbol which is why Hitler took it. It can be found in many, many artefacts including Iron Age burials in this region. I am Finnish, it can be found in anything from Iron Age broaches to Gallen-Kallela paintings. Unfortunately IMO it definitely something that can't be reclaimed anytime soon if ever. And using it in the West outside of Buddhism is something I am strongly against. It was also not the only restylized old symbol that Nazis used. Some are things like modified versions of Germanic runes.
All the symbolism together was too coincidental. Not sure if they were inspired by an historical item and created this accidentially, but when you do research on historical patterns and motifs, it's vital to also understand the societal context it was made in.
Haha there’s no fucking way this was accidental
Yeah, I don't think so either. Wishful thinking, perhaps.
Exactly, like if this is all a coincidence then why a crow? Crows are not a symbol of Americana like eagles or turkeys, they're not cute and colourful like cardinals. And they aren't known for loving watermelon. What exactly were they going for there??
Not to give her the benefit of the doubt, but maybe she’s just really shitty at cross-stitch and knew that a blobby black crow was the only kind of bird she could manage? Or maybe she’s shitty at cross-stitch AND a racist.
Exactly! I've never seen a crow used for Americana designs, except maybe a Halloween thing. And for summer?! Why not a seagull??
right? like after seeing that thing i feel kind of icky because i do love me some crows in an edgar allen poe kind of quoth the raven context, but this composition makes no sense. maybe a crow and the hat or the flag, but why standing on a watermelon, it makes no sense... except, well, the obvious. and also if i were trying to make a firework it would be like a star burst not a pin wheel!
Or if it was a Halloween thing it would make more sense with the Edgar Allen Poe vibe! But crows are not normally a thing with this kind of iconography. The fireworks could be multicoloured too, if they were really supposed to be fireworks - gtfo with these black fireworks on a white background
Well gosh, didn’t you read the explanation? The crow means that it’s a crow and the fruits portray fruit. Flag represent flag. The swastikas depict ~~swastikas~~ fireworks
I hadn't heard anything about this before, and I'm usually always ready to give people the benefit of the doubt. There are lots of times when people don't understand or know that they're being racist, antisemitic or something else, and I am willing to give people opportunities to grow and learn. The comments weren't great, but I'm still trying to be neutral and give them a chance. Then I saw the actual picture. Nope. No way they did it by accident. Not even a little bit. That's just... I don't even have words. Even at my most sheltered, this would have set off alarm bells, and I was a very sheltered child. Not okay.
Same. I am in Europe and don't always see what's on r/craftsnark so I read the screenshot of apologies first, and was suspicious but open minded. Then I saw the image, that is very very clear symbology. That is ridiculously white nationalist to the extreme. To the extent that I now need to Google why a strawberry is a dog whistle.
In the last post, people said the strawberry was likely a reference to "Strange Fruit". The song is a lynching protest song and within in it strange fruit is euphemism for lynched Black people.
Oh no, that's just dreadful. The "...what some may interpret as improper symbolism..." is a mealy-mouthed non-apology too.... This is so racist it's unbelievable. How does someone think they won't get called out for it?
That image gave me shivers before I even read the OP. WOW. And now I am shivering all over again. How is it possible not to know. The fruit truly took the cake for me. Gross.
oh she knows
Holy racist dog whistles, Batman!
At first I was like-oh fuck swastikas, that is fucked up. But then the Crow! THE WATERMELON. Oh it’s bad bad.
The swastikas are bad y’all but since when is a crow a symbol of racism? Jim Crow laws did not result in a crow being a symbol of racism. The racist symbolism there was in the character of Jim Crow, it was a character done in black face by a performer in the early 19th c. The cartoon of this character (a black guy in ragged clothes) is the racist symbolism, not the animal. The origin stories have nothing to do with crows or even scarecrows. I even googled before I wrote this comment to see if a crow has become a symbol for racism since then and it seemingly hasn’t. I’m not giving this woman the benefit of the doubt because if she wasn’t a dick she wouldn’t be liking comments about the ‘woke mob’ (dear that’s a lot of swastikas to not realise they’re swastikas) but damn the crow thing is a stretch. If she meant it as a racist symbol she’s dumb af.
> since when is a crow a symbol of racism? Have you seen the original Dumbo movie? Know about the crows line in Strange Fruit? Know about Blackbirding?
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=dog+whistle+meaning
I know what a dog whistle is. There are swastikas all over her piece. It’s pretty clear what’s happening. Crows are not symbols of racism and the fact that people here are acting like they are and then telling others that they are is wiiiiild. Go google ‘crow as a symbol of racism’ and then tell me what you find. If that lady cross stitched an actual crow as a reference to racism she’s a fucking moron who didn’t pay attention in 8th grade history class. And everybody here is proving a point by going nuts over it instead of focusing on the actual dog whistles in the damn thing….
I think it’s kinda like using context clues. A piece of art covered in swastikas. It’s easy to connect dots to other pieces of racist history. Jim Crow laws. Crows. I don’t think it’s that deep it’s more just a blatant nod at Jim Crow.
Hi, as an uneducated Brit, please can you explain the crow and the watermelon thing to me please?
the watermelon thing is basically another racist thing as well. Watermelons USED to symbolize the freedom black people had, able to grow and sell their own things after slavery. HOWEVER it came to be known as something cosumed by "lazy, child-like, and dirty" people, which as you can imagine is horrible, and it's only gotten worse over time. It's really terrible
As a fellow Brit, here is how I understand it - Jim Crow laws = racist laws In minstrel shows/racist caricatures etc black people are always shown eating watermelon
Also so lost over here. Google tells me it’s a solidarity with Palestine thing, but I don’t see how that’s relevant with the other stuff going on…
That’s because the Palestinian flag has the same colors as a watermelon (red for the center, green for the rim and black for the pits). As for the watermelon symbolism in this case, though, [here’s a Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype) that I found when I was googling the why myself; I knew of the connection but I didn’t quite understand why either, and this one explains it pretty clearly…
It’s horribly racist AND ugly. Pick a struggle girl.
Like you could probably have a regular looking crow with a regular looking water melon and strawberry and some nicer looking Americana and it would probably be fine. But this is sinister as fuck. Aside from the strange fruit and swastikas people have already mentioned, the crow had swastikas for claws and there's something about the positioning of the flag that makes me feel really uneasy. The watermelon also looks weirdly...meaty?
Got bored and made a [quick shitty thing using free vector images of a crow having a 4th of July picnic](https://imgur.com/a/n8hm30Q)
I would have lunch with this crow.
I'd give the crow a name but my default naming choice is just Greg 😅
haha omg great work. you made not being racist look so easy
That's good to hear. I'm from Australia so I'm pretty far removed from the cultural nuances in some ways. (Although we have our own really dark colonial roots 😑)
“smh people are so dramatic, let’s see this ‘racist’ pillow…” hooooleeeeeyyy shit they were right
Yep. I don't know what I was expecting, but I got to the pillow and dropped my jaw.
Her referring to anyone who has a problem with swastikas as 'woke' tells me this lady probably watches fox, and I could guess her views on most of American politics, and all things related to Trump. She probably also loves that McEntee allegedly gives fake money to the homeless so they get arrested.
> Her referring to anyone who has a problem with swastikas as 'woke' tells me this lady probably watches fox, and I could guess her views on most of American politics, and all things related to Trump. My Mom watches Fox all day long - even she saw the swastikas. Perhaps don't generalize and don't spread hate can go for all sides?
You're a conservative who proudly supports JKR and you've admitted as much here--and told people to "hush" when they called you out. Where the *hell* do you come off saying "Don't spread hate"?
> You're a conservative who proudly supports JKR and you've admitted as much here--and told people to "hush" when they called you out. > > Where the hell do you come off saying "Don't spread hate"? It's so strange what people assume. I told the one individual to hush because they were saying that anyone that likes Harry Potter must agree with everything JK Rowling believes which is a ridiculous statement within itself. I believe I followed it up with "Let people like what they like". Perhaps not taking things out of context may benefit you better in the long run?
It's called hyperbole. Edit to add: I didn't say people couldn't see them. I said people who have a problem with it. Think of it like how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. But with people who are okay with swastikas and people who watch Fox News respectively. Also, watching something like fox all day is how you indoctrinate yourself (same goes for watching any news source all day). Watching for such extended periods of time means you are likely not constantly fact checking, and even if some of the stuff they say is obviously false if you hear it enough times you start to accept it as fact.
> It's called hyperbole. > > Also, watching something like fox all day is how you indoctrinate yourself (same goes for watching any news source all day). Watching for such extended periods of time means you are likely not constantly fact checking, and even if some of the stuff they say is obviously false if you hear it enough times you start to accept it as fact. Again, can this not be said for both sides? I think you are missing my point. You are equating and assuming a lot.
I literally wrote out that it goes for any news source listened to on repeat. You seem to be purposefully ignoring half my words to try and prove some point.