From SRP author Tracy Cooper-Posey:
A couple of weeks ago in my newsletter, I mentioned a gorgeous crochet wrap I’d fallen head over heels for—the kind of pattern that whispers fairy-tale librarian vibes and demands yarn priced like gold leaf. I lamented the cost, floated the idea of Frankensteining it together from secondhand yarn, and promptly received an inbox full of amazing reader responses. Advice, encouragement, even requests for the pattern.
That’s what makes this next bit even more fun.
Around the same time, I stumbled on this CNN article about people who had asked AI to generate crochet patterns. And then—because curiosity is a powerful thing—they actually crocheted them.
The results were… glorious. And bizarre. And occasionally horrifying in that way only yarn-based creatures can be.
I didn’t ask ChatGPT to create a pattern myself (I’m not that mean), but several brave souls did, and the patterns they received were stitched faithfully into life—one miscount, one ambiguous instruction, one eldritch loop at a time. The photos they shared are proof that yes, AI-generated crochet patterns are art. Just maybe not in the way we usually mean that word.
But here’s the thing: they’re weirdly charming. Much like early MidJourney art—which gave us glorious alien cities and also, occasionally, a woman with eight fingers and no elbows—these AI patterns live in that delightful space between intention and interpretation. The code tries. The yarn rebels. Magic ensues.
Also, let’s be fair: ChatGPT is not a crochet expert. It’s a language expert. It can imitate the structure of a pattern, but creating one that actually produces something recognizable, wearable, or vaguely humanoid? Not really in its wheelhouse.
And that’s okay.
Because what did come out of this experiment was joy. Laughter. Squishy, floppy, “what is that even supposed to be?” joy. And frankly, that’s what most of us are chasing with our creative projects anyway.
So tell me:
Have you ever followed a pattern—AI-written or otherwise—and ended up somewhere unexpected?
Did your shawl become a hat? Did your doily resemble roadkill? Did you finish it anyway out of sheer bloody-mindedness? I want to see. Send me your Franken-patterns, your woolly monsters, your happy accidents. We’ll celebrate the wonk together.
