Breaking the Silence
Fellow Ravens,
I believe it’s time to address the ongoing situation.
First, let me clarify that I’m not in competition with anyone, nor do I view anyone as a rival or enemy. After all, we’re all part of the same community. However, the overwhelming interest you’ve shown in our recently launched Patreon page and our latest updates seems to have stirred up some controversy. It appears that emotions are running high, and the drama is resurfacing.
I’d like to shed some light on the recent events and share my perspective.
I briefly touched on this topic earlier (https://ravencoven.com/raven-coven-v2-0/#here), but due to the increasing attacks and those who believe these aggressors, I feel compelled to break my silence and provide a more detailed explanation. You can imagine my frustration.
Of course, I won’t name anyone or give them the attention they seem to crave. They don’t deserve this publicity.
It all began two years ago when I first started on Etsy (Ravenstitchcraft is now 2.5 years old). To produce patterns more quickly, I sought help from legitimate designers and some self-proclaimed designers I found on Upwork (all paid). Unfortunately, some of these so-called designers sold patterns and images they found on the internet as their own designs. In fact, one or two of these were designs by a well-known cross sitch designer that were once for sale but later removed.
When I was first contacted about this issue, I was in disbelief. Upon checking the designer’s page and not seeing those patterns, I requested proof before confronting the designer I had worked with. Once provided with evidence, I immediately apologized and assured that it would never happen again. I promptly removed the designs in question, as I would never knowingly engage in such behavior. That was my first and last contact with this designer, and she never publicly attacked or accused me again.
However, a few weeks later, someone I believe to be a close friend of the aforementioned designer contacted me. She claimed that my “Nadja’s Club Logo” pattern (based on my favorite show, “What We Do in the Shadows,” and the character Nadja) on my Etsy page was stolen from her Patreon page and demanded its removal. (As if she had originally created the logo and as if replicating this design from a TV show was an incredibly difficult feat that could only have been her brilliant idea.)
I informed her that I didn’t know her and wasn’t even a member of her private Patreon page where she had published the pattern. Upon her insistence, I provided explanations highlighting the differences between my pattern and hers. However, this wasn’t sufficient, and she attempted to file a false copyright claim with Etsy to have the Nadja’s Club design removed, despite not owning the copyright. (You may be aware of how detrimental this can be to a seller, especially one just starting out.)
In response, I told her to leave me alone and warned her that if she made any more false copyright claims and accusations against me, I would pursue legal action, stating that I had enough evidence to do so.
I believe she assumed I would back down and admit fault as I did with the previous designer. However, after I responded and disputed the false copyright claim, resulting in my Nadja’s Club pattern being republished 10 days later, she became enraged. She took advantage of my collaboration with these fake designers (scammers) and posted negative content about me on her accounts where she had blocked me, denying me the opportunity to defend myself. She spread these posts at every opportunity. Along with a large group of pattern sellers and supporters (who had no connection to the issue), she launched a smear campaign against me. They reached out to every platform they could to prevent me from posting on social media or elsewhere, and tried everything from SEO attacks on my site to attacks on my newsletters to make my emails land in spam folders. One of them even made a similar comment in a Facebook group last year, and when I responded, they remained silent. However, they continued to orchestrate attacks through their private channels or by privately contacting everyone who shared my designs or posted my work.
Initially, many of the amateur patterns I created were based on designs with copyrights I had purchased, suitable for conversion into patterns. As I mentioned, many other designers’ works also have been added since then, while low-quality ones and those made by scammers have been removed. The patterns created during the time I refer to as RavenCoven v2 are my own work, and I assure you that none of my patterns are stolen or have copyright issues. (Of course, this excludes fan-made patterns like those for “What We Do in the Shadows” or “Wednesday,” but at least I don’t claim these designs as my own, unlike some others.)
As you might have noticed, no other cross-stitch sub-niche has as much drama as the gothic and witchy niche. Because of people like this, we’ve started to become a community where we’re enemies to each other, everyone has to pick a side, and we can’t even praise each other’s carefully crafted work. They consider themselves the gatekeepers of cross-stitch, setting their own rules about what’s right and wrong, what constitutes an original design, and even who you should support. Please don’t let them get away with this. Do your own research, contact with the sellers and decide for yourself what to buy and who to support.
What saddens me the most is seeing many people believing these ridiculous accusations without even asking me and turning against me. Additionally, many artists who have poured their effort into their masterpieces are attacked by this group and made to feel ashamed, leading them to remove their work or even close their stores.
Another issue they try to attack me on is that our patterns are accessible to everyone, claiming that this shows a lack of quality in our patterns. We offer many freebies and provide free patterns to anyone who wants them. My response to them: I get back far more from my community than I give, and everyone knows that money is the last thing we talk about. If you spent the time you use attacking people on making patterns, you too could create more and give back to your community as we do by distributing freebies and discounts.
They also accuse me of creating my patterns with AI. I challenge anyone who says this to try to produce the same quality patterns using AI, especially the woodcut and pet cemetery series they accused of being AI art. They know very well that such technology doesn’t exist yet, but of course, many people are unaware of this and believe their claims.
As I have always answered your questions about this topic and have never hesitated to mention, I use AI only to frame my patterns to better appeal to your eyes, to decorate newsletters, or for events. Despite many of you asking me to turn these into patterns, I do not monetize AI art. I have never hidden this and never will. In fact, I have openly stated that our latest Rotten Egg Hunt II event was AI-based and thanked my husband for his help with AI technology and the event.
As mentioned in the behind-the-scenes video of Majestic Owl, you can see how the patterns and frames are made. As shown there, AI was not used in the creation of the patterns, and only ethically trained AI within Adobe Photoshop, a program used by millions of artists for decades, was used for the frames. Don’t misunderstand me; I am definitely not advocating for AI art. It is not my place to debate the ethics of AI, and I do not wish to start a discussion on this here. However, I am at peace with the fact that I do not sell AI-made art, and I am certain that those who criticize me for this will one day incorporate AI into their own work.
As also mentioned in the RavenCoven v2 post and elsewhere, about a year ago, I left my job as a graphic designer at an advertising agency to dedicate all my time to RavenCoven. Now, I work solely as a cross-stitch designer. While preparing designs and answering community questions (I know I’m not very good at this), I am also taking new courses like pixel art design and researching different art styles to improve myself. I love being a cross-stitch designer, seeing the work you create with those designs and the community we have built together.
I’ve ignored their ridiculous attacks and stayed silent, but I still can’t believe they persist so relentlessly. I’m not the only artist attacked by these people. I’ve witnessed them attacking many successful designers just because they’re not supporting them, and it’s truly unbelievable!
I chose to give brief explanations to those who contacted me about this matter, as I didn’t want to get dragged into the mud they were trying to pull me into. I wanted to focus on my work because I don’t have the time, mental energy, or desire to deal with them.
To everyone who has experienced similar abuse, don’t stay silent. We stand with you! Don’t let them ruin your craft, art, and your life!
Like anyone, you may have made mistakes, but you don’t deserve to suffer the consequences forever.
Again, I acknowledge my past mistakes, accept them, and believe I’ve paid the price by losing the trust of many ravens. I assure you these were rookie mistakes and will not be repeated.
After all these words, it might sound a bit ironic, but first and foremost, I want to thank those who initiated this smear campaign. They thought they could harm us, but instead, they helped us weed out impostors in our coven and played a significant role in my self-improvement by pointing out my mistakes and shortcomings. Additionally, I want to thank them for spreading word about my shop to thousands of their followers through their free campaigns. Believe me, I couldn’t have bought such publicity even with money!
Thank you for your understanding, for accepting me with my faults and flaws, for your continued support.
With unwavering spirit and gratitude,
Gizem 🖤
10 Comments
I’m so sorry to see grown women acting like middle school mean girls to you. And sorry to see you had to take time away from your business to defend yourself.
I’m currently working on your beautiful skeleton queen design, adding some specialty threads, and will get a pic to you as soon as I can.
Good luck and I hope you persevere 💜
Thank you for the work you do. Thank you for the transparency, though the attacks you have undergone should never have reached that extent. You are appreciated and you continue to have my support!
HI YA! I’m SuZy Queue
I designer under the name GrandmaBeWildin and GothStitch.com
I became a bit of an overnight sensation in 2020 for my Dumpster Fire 2020 crossstitch kit when I heavily featured in BuzzFeed for pretty much the entire year for my handmade DIY learn to cross-stitch kit.
What they’ve done to you, what they’ve done to myself, what they did to others before us, and what they will keep doing to new designers that choose to not “pledge allegiance to the drags” has created so many bad vibes in our fiber art community. I mean I’ll say it’s bad vibes but quite frankly, this is beyond bad vibes.
I typed and deleted a bunch and not really sure what I want to publicly say about the whole terrible thing that is going on in the goth/witchy fiber arts spaces.
I have been publicly defamed for years now, privately in 2020 and publicly in 2021. It’s by the same group of people. it’s always the same group of people. These people are not heroes keeping our goth/witchy stitchy scene safe. They are a controlling group who want to choose who can have a shot at a successful alternative fiber art design business and what I learned the hard way is that if you don’t do anything wrong, they will actually make up HUGE WHOPPERS OF A LIE and spread it like it’s truth if they can’t find any actual mud to sling about you. They constantly vouch for each other’s morals & ethics to make it appear as though they beacons of virtue, but truly they use their seat of privilege to just maintain their “mean girls clique” and rage-bait their supporters into black-balling the “competition”.
This is human art. This isn’t a competition nor a political campaign! I’m not a villain, I’m a life-long stitcher, it’s been passed down in my family for years, I learned when I was a child, I have it in my blood, it’s my passion, it’s my escape, it’s my catharsis , it’s my joy, and I happen to be a DeathRocker with a punk rock base who leans Goth, I work in a metaphysical shop, so of course my designs are alternative. That isn’t a sales gimmick, I’m just me creating and sharing my art with kindred spirits.
As always the GothStitch groups welcome all (except people that literally publicly defame others) and I promise everyone is actually safe from bad vibes in the GothStitch groups. F*ck what you heard, come see for yourself. They tell you to block us for your own safety so that you can’t see and feel that we are actually good humans and so that you won’t question wether it feels right to you in your own heart.
To my/our opps I say this: I can not, as you have suggested in the past, stop making gothy designs or quit cross stitching to take up another hobby. Enough is enough. Stop targeting, dog-piling, excluding, vilifying, and DEFAMING REAL HUMANS WHO ARE MAKING FIBER ART. I mean, dear L’Ort (Lord of Orts) who is stalking who? who is harassing who? who is not allowing stitchers to post who’s designs to the stitch groups? Who has asked publicly that people exclude who? Who demands that designers pledge allegiance to the drags or also be thrown out, silenced, or also dragged by association? This classic mean girls shit is not goth and it’s not witchy so just stop. This othering by any means is NOT THE VIBE.
Gizem, my friend, you are so brave. You are the very first of many of us who has had the strength to take a public stand. Thank you.
At this time I don’t have the spoons to shout my own truth, but it mirrors yours quite closely, thank you for giving us a voice.
I went through all 399 patterns last night on my own time, and NONE are stolen. Not a single one. I stand with you! 🖤💜🖤
The stolen art has been taken down by IP strikes but none of us have forgotten that this designer started her business and created her brand by stealing patterns from other designers. You also cannot successfully do a reverse image search using a cross stitch mockup to look for the original art. The cross stitch mockup is too pixelated and it almost never works.
None of you? Please tell me who you are so I know who I’m dealing with in the face of these accusations. You should be aware that no one else is making baseless claims with fake names here.
The only IP strike I received, as mentioned in the post above, was related to the Nadja’s Club pattern, which was illegally made by your side. It was reopened after my dispute with Etsy. You can still see it online here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1360030498/nadjas-club-cross-stitch-pattern-digital?
An IP strike can only be made by the rightful owner of the design. If I had received the IP strikes you mentioned, my newly opened Etsy shop would have been immediately shut down. You know how strict Etsy’s policies are on this matter. What you’re doing here is simply misleading many stitchers who don’t know these technical details with your slander. That’s all you’ve managed to do so far.
I removed all the problematic patterns as soon as I found out that I had worked with scammers (thanks to you, it didn’t take long) without receiving any IP strikes.
Also Google’s reverse search algorithm works much better than you claim. You know this very well because you used this method initially to help me identify the problematic patterns. Have you forgotten? Are you suddenly claiming that this algorithm isn’t good enough anymore?
what a load of crap. you have been stealing for years. learn to do your own art.
Are you trying to teach me how to create my art, just like you’re trying to tell people which sellers they should buy from? No, thank you. I’ve been taking lessons to develop my craft for years.
For the love of fallen gods, are these people bored. There is space for everyone in this market, I don’t understand this competition or how high some set the standards for designers – we all make mistakes. I d&cked up more times than I can count on my one gnarly hand. I am really sorry that they launched such vicious campaign against you. It breaks my heart and I hope you are able to protect your sanity.
Also, these keyboard warriors could do us all a favour and go after pattern mills that actually steal artwork. I would even support that.
A not goth designer I like a lot uses the same phrase for a series of patterns. I was slightly miffed when another designer started a series with the same phrase, alrough completely different designs. So, I let the designer I like know. She just chuckled and said that it happens all the time and without malicious intent. Ideas bounce around with each other, the community, current trends and pop culture. It is inevitable for similar themes to come up. How many tarot card patterns are out there by numerous designers; how many blue jay and cardinal patterns are there?There is room for everyone.