Blocked From My Own Blog

Cisco Umbrella protecting me from myself...

So how much protection is too much protection?

Towards the end of August, my ten year old modem gave out and off we went on a wild ride to get a new one installed. I won't bother with details of the assorted issues that we had to deal with to get up and running again, but midway through the process, I found myself blocked from my own blog. What?!

A message of "Your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from esheepdesigns.blogspot.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). Learn more about this warning net::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID" came up and stopped me in my tracks when I typed my URL into my browser.

To make matters worse, while I've encountered similar notices on other sites in the past, there had always been an option to "proceed at your own risk," so to speak. None here; no button to click to go any further. The only way to bypass the actual screen was to change https to http in the URL, but that only gave me the screen that you see above.

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I'm not here to give a lengthy technical explanation on what the problem was and what the eventual solution entailed. Let me just say that it came with our new modem, which apparently was configured to go through Cisco Umbrella, which is a DNS-layer protection service that identifies and blocks potentially "bad" internet traffic before a connection is made.

Services like this have both positive and negative results. On the positive side, most of us want to have malware and phishing sites identified so that they don't harm us; I get that. But inaccurate flagging can wreak havoc with legitimate businesses – with actual financial consequences – which is decidedly negative. Luckily I am not in this to make a living, but I can imagine how someone who is might react to being arbitrarily blackballed by such a service.

Had to submit a trouble ticket to try to reverse this decision...

I'm not sure how a site gets identified by Cisco, especially small-time entities like my blog (which is hosted by blogger.com; I don't even have my own domain), but ordinary folks like you and me can report a site to them. Which then begs the question: did someone maliciously report my blog?

If Cisco itself actually goes out and parses random code, might it have stumbled onto my blog and found some tiny script somewhere that it determined to be potentially harmful? I don't know. I do know that my blog makes use of widgets written by others (if you view my blog on a desktop, you'll see the left sidebar where they all reside), but they are all innocuous things that have been used since forever and are in no way employed for phishing purposes. The two widgets that actually ask for an email address are the ones for subscribing to my blog and for contacting me. They aren't being used in any devious fashion to try to trick visitors into giving up their information to a bogus site. (They aren't even "in your face" the way some sites are; i.e., the ones that use pop-ups to get you to sign up upon entering.)

Three days after encountering this difficulty, I registered an account on Cisco, just so I could submit a trouble ticket. (Merely clicking on the link to "Report an incorrect block" – that is clearly shown in the middle of the screenshot at the top of this post – just results in an error message.) In the meantime, my site currently has a web reputation of "untrusted"... somewhat ironic considering what AI came up with several weeks ago.

Of course, I still had the problem of not being able to load up my own site. 😖

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Thank you for supporting my indie designer dream...

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I had already established that not being able to see the site wasn't a blanket issue. My Google Analytics stats were still showing visits during the entire time that I was blocked, so I knew that it wasn't affecting everyone. Still, the fact that it was affecting anyone was a concern; therefore, I made it a priority to log the issue with Cisco first before I took time out to look into how to fix my own problem.

After I submitted my ticket, I did some digging online and arrived at a solution to my dilemma. By changing DNS settings on the modem, I was able to circumvent Cisco's flagging of my blog on my own devices. It was a happy moment when I saw my blog load up again. (For the sake of anyone coming to this post in future to seek an answer to this issue, if your modem DNS settings cannot be changed, apparently if you change your device's DNS settings, they will override whatever is on the modem. I will not get any more detailed than that since there several online sources that will guide you through the required process.)

Cisco's resolution of my ticket...

It was Labour Day weekend when I submitted, so I did not get a response until the Tuesday following. It appears as though at some point, everything will be well again. The resolution does not indicate how the situation originally came to be, so there is no guarantee that this won't happen again.  

Knowing that there are others who are locked out by a security application that they may not have chosen to employ is frustrating to say the least. To answer my own question from the top of this post, this was definitely too much protection, being done for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

And Now for Some Good Stuff...

Amazingly enough, during the time that I was having these technical issues, I had a couple of good surprises. (It actually took ten days for us to be up and running with a new modem. Fortunately – unlike ten years ago when we had limited alternatives when it comes to internet access – the data allotment on hubby's and my cell phone plans were sufficient to keep us comfortably functioning.)

The first "wow" came from finding out that I had sold eleven rolls (!) of wallpaper via Spoonflower. Then it was discovering the most heart-warming detail about the two transactions: the designs... 

Mockup images of Just Sheep wallpaper courtesy of Spoonflower...

For those of you who weren't around when I created Just Sheep over five years ago, it was the ultimate realization of a goal that I had had since I first dabbled in surface design: a representation of sheep that had nothing to do with wool and knitting that could be the thematic marker for my "brand". I've been pleasantly surprised by its reception, since I've sold some of it as fabric, but nothing has approached this level of appreciation.

Two days later, I received notice of another surprise purchase that was similarly gratifying: seven yards (!) of my original Pride & Prejudice fabric in organic cotton sateen via Etsy. Needless to say, I am extremely curious as to what these items will ultimately look like/be turned into, but unfortunately, it's not common for folks to contact me after such purchases. 😞

But it's always nice to have my work be supported. Many thanks to anyone and everyone who has done so over the years!

Oh, and to my handful of Canadian readers, have a peaceful Thanksgiving weekend. 🥰

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁

Easy Way to "Dehoodify" a Hoodie in 5 Steps

Want to KO the hood on your hoodie?

In other words, how to remove an unwanted hood from a hoodie quickly.

First, can someone explain to me why so many fleece garments are made with a hood attached to them? Coats and jackets, I get, but IMHO, a great many fleecies should just be plain sweatshirts and not hoodies. The bulk at the back – that generally goes unused unless you're a wannabe gangster – mostly gets in the way and is just a waste of fabric.

After watching a couple of YouTube videos, I felt comfortable enough to take the scissors to one of my hoodies and do my own thing with it. What I outline here can be done in under an hour, with minimal unpicking and by sewing just two seams.

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Step 1: Mark a Cutting Line

First, place the garment on a flat surface and stack the hood on its side, with its center seam folded and outside edges even. Remove and retain the cord.

Mark a cutting line...

I marked a line 2.5" away from the existing seam, but go ahead and increase that if you want to have more of a cowl-like neckline for your finished garment. (I'd recommend 3" to 4" – or 7.5cm to 10cm – if that's what you're looking for.) I curved the cutting line to match the existing seam for the hood, but you can simply measure a straight line with a ruler, using the highest part of the existing seam as your reference point.

Step 2: Cut Off Hood and Unpick Stitches

Pin both sides of the hood together so that they won't shift when you cut, and then slice away. 

Sliced off and ready to proceed...

Once you open up the collar – which is what it technically is at this point – you may see areas where you'll have to use your seam ripper to remove stitches. (Some hoodies have a vertical seam at the back that will need to be undone in order to separate the two layers of the collar.)

Remove any extra stitching to open up the collar fully...

For this one, I only had to remove the channel stitching beside the button holes where the cording used to pass through upwards.

Step 3: Create a Top Seam

At this point, most instructions will simply tell you to clip or pin a new seam along the top edge of the collar. I decided to accomplish two tasks at once and put the cord back inside at essentially the same time. (I clipped all the way around first to create the desired seam, and then added the cord by removing the clips a section at a time.)

Encase the cord inside the collar as you (re)pin the top seam...

You don't have to do it this way, but I figured why not, as it would save me the trouble of threading the cord through a channel later. 

Cord encased and ready to sew...

If you're confident about not stitching into the cord – you can totally feel where it is as you sew, so it shouldn't be a problem – this will eliminate that bit of work at the end.

As for what seam allowance to use, I went with about 3/8" (1cm) simply because the fleece is rather thick and slippery. Not sure I would have been able to do a 1/4" (6mm), but really, it's not important at all; whatever you choose, just make sure it's even.

Step 4: Sew Top Seam

Put some matching thread into your sewing machine and stitch the top seam, ensuring that you don't sew on the cord if you've put it inside. Sew as close to the edge as is comfortable for your skillset.

One seam down...

Step 5: Create & Sew Channel Seam

If you've encased the cord, use your fingers to push it towards the top seam (that you just sewed) and then pin the collar together underneath it. This is where you'll sew the second seam, effectively creating a channel for the cord.

Note that in my case, the button hole leading into the collar is located high up so that I can simply sew a straight seam for the cord channel. 

Consider the location of the opening for the cord and adjust sewing line if necessary...

If the opening for the cord is located lower, you will have to extend the seamline down along the front opening of the collar to accommodate it, as shown by the black line above.

Once you've sewn that seam, that's all there is to it! 

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Thank you for supporting my indie designer dream...

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Note that you will come across more sophisticated and elaborate methods of eliminating a hood (or for converting a hoodie into something different) if you do a deep dive on YouTube, but they all involve much more work. If all you're looking for is to be rid of the hood, this is the easiest and quickest way to do it.

I'm getting a whole lot more comfortable about cutting up something to alter it. Over the past few weeks, I've cut a zipper out of a jacket and sliced a brand new winch cover in half.

Done in about a half hour!

If you're the sort who is hesitant about taking scissors to clothing, perhaps this would be a good first attempt at doing an alteration. It's certainly not hard and takes under an hour — the perfect project for when you have a "spare" moment to try something different and build up your sewing experience.

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁

What A Sewer Does Between Projects

The things a sewer does can be somewhat mundane...

Or... things I do because I sew.

Just over a year and a half prior to my becoming a "born again sewer," I handed over a couple of hubby's shirts to my late market friend Colleen for alterations. Given that they only needed to be shortened, I'm sure I could have been up to the task had I put my mind to it.

But at that time, I didn't consider myself to be a person who sewed. (Which was odd in itself given my history of having been a sewer in my younger days.) Fast forward fifteen years, and I now find myself doing certain things "because I sew."

How about you? In between the times when you're actively making this or that, based on this tutorial or that pattern, do you take on mundane sewing tasks just because you happen to sew?

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This sort of relates to the practice of hubby giving me projects like his winch cover and boat tote. (And in fact, winch cover 3.0 is one of my upcoming posts. Since we no longer have any of the smaller ones to take apart, this new one is made from scratch.)

Winch cover version two...

Late last year, he showed me a pair of more or less okay jeans that had developed an unusual vertical rip along the side, beside the back pocket. It was a good four inches long and the exposed edges were quite frayed, so I told him that any fix I could apply would not be invisible.

Quick jeans repair...

Fortunately, he was not picky about what it would end up looking like, so I went in with a long strip of old denim, applied it to the inside with some double-sided tape and zig-zagged stitched the whole thing from the top. Not pretty, but I thought it would do the job of making the jeans wearable again... until he brought them back with the same problem. I'm thinking that the location and direction of the tear makes this a tough fix, so the jeans have gone into our pile of "old denim." (An example of one of those failed projects, I guess.)

Further on the topic of things fraying, back in 2020, I made a set of placemats out of my Spoonflower Roast Duck and Veggie Noodle Soup fabric. They've been in constant use on our dinner table ever since, laundered regularly, and over the past five years, the edges have started to show definite wear and tear.

So what's a sewer to do?

Adding binding to my old placemats...

Bind them, of course. I took one of the Craftsy fabrics that I'd purchased in 2018 (from the Boundless DECOdent Earthtone Stash Builder collection) and cut it into strips to make straight binding. Hubby says the placemats look better than they did before. I'm not sure myself, but I do know that this was the best way that I could think of to protect them from further fraying.

Other things don't fray, but rather stretch out.

In 2019, I made some cushions for a pair of shinto stools using my Ode to the Canadian Penny fabric and some inserts from old chair pads that were almost destined for the trash. Like my placemats, these have been in constant use ever since, and over the past year or so, I'd noticed that the elastic had – like elastic is prone to do – stretched out significantly to the point that the cushions were slip sliding around.

Shortening up some elastic...

The way to fix it was obvious and is shown in the photo above. It was just a bit tricky to get in close enough to do the sewing with a sewing machine. (I supposed I could have done the job with some hand sewing.) But now these cushions fit snugly once more and I am happy with the outcome.

So that covers repairs and maintenance. What about discarded things that you might suddenly have a use for?

One of my fabric origami projects, the six pocket pouch, also made an appearance here in 2019. It's a simple thing that starts with a fabric square of any size. As a demonstration of "don't use too small of a square," I also folded a tiny version for comparison's sake.

My old 6 pocket origami pouch with a tiny companion...

The small one shown above was not sewn together at the time, but luckily, I did hold onto it all these years (it was actually in my scraps pile). When it occurred to me that it had potential as a gift bag for a small ring, I first congratulated myself on remembering where it might be (!) and then, after I found it, took the time to hand sew as much of it was needed to turn it into something unique and useful. (Full disclosure: it does not have all of the expected six pockets.)

Teeny tiny origami pouch with some pockets...

A ball shaped button and a thin red ribbon functions as a "loop and tie" closure for the pouch. Quite dainty and pretty if I do say so myself.

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I've done some intriguing things with old fleece scarves in the past (check this post here), but even though I've had this red one for a long time, it has never received the upcycle treatment. Actually, the last thing that I considered doing with it, was to use the material to make mitts.

Fortunately that didn't happen, or I wouldn't now have this literal and figurative "statement" scarf.

Adding patriotic commentary to an old Roots fleece scarf...

Back the mid-1980s, I took white felt and cut out the name and number of one of my favourite hockey players at the time and hand sewed it onto the back of a jersey. (Forty-some years ago, it wasn't yet a given thing for every hockey fan to shell out a couple hundred bucks for a custom jersey; personally, I still can't contemplate doing so.)

I figured that if that job wasn't beyond me, it shouldn't be too difficult to sew twelve letters onto a scarf. Without a doubt, the hardest part was to cut out the letters. (I put double sided tape onto the back of the paper letters before placing them onto my material of choice and then cutting again.) Instead of felt, I used fusible fleece – which allowed the letters to be adhered to a certain extent – and then did a quasi-blanket stitch around them to secure.

Not being a hand-sewing enthusiast in general, this was one of those times when the activity – pursued over a period of a few weeks – was particularly therapeutic and reflective. It was a worthwhile diversion. (I did this back in March, hence the snow in the pic.)

What do you do between major sewing projects?

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁

AI Complimented Me & It Felt Weird

It's actually easy to fall into the AI trap...

Countries and corporations are tripping over themselves running at virtual cliffs in a bid to come out on top in the AI wars.

I am of the opinion that we haven't fully considered the ramifications of reaching the destination we are all racing towards. It's entirely possible to come upon a future reality where we will not be able to control AI.

I don't know about you, but that possibility freaks me out.

Having been on the front lines when the prediction of "a computer in every home" was made – and seeing how we've become so tethered to the "computer" in our pockets (i.e., smart phones) – I know human beings are very susceptible to being charmed by big tech. This new reality should be alarming to all of us.

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A few years back, a fellow craft blogger posted about the subject of AI, testing its potential ability to create a simple craft project. She did a small experiment using simple prompts that resulted in a set of instructions that could be followed to upcycle a plastic container.

Most of the comments that followed were dismissive of the project itself (i.e., underwhelming, not original, not very creative, "no soul", etc.) but let's be real, it wasn't as if the subject matter was conducive to being turned into anything trail blazing. The significant part was that AI did the job that it was told to do and did so without any spelling or grammatical errors. In my life, I've encountered many people who can't do that. (That was the gist of the comment that I added to the discussion.)

Fast forward three years and the AI landscape has changed a lot, a lot.

obvious AI image from Sewing Show channel on YouTube...

YouTube videos can now be produced entirely by AI (more on that later). Even creators who do their own content are front-loading their videos with AI enhanced images. I can't tell you how many sewing vids are now prefaced with a photo of the finished item shown in multiples. It's now so amazingly easy to make AI images that a certain orange moron knows how to do so.

And written content? Well, that was arguably the litmus test of AI from the start. The quality has now progressed to the point of it being so good that it's being mistaken for human writing... or vice versa, in what must be one of the most ironic examples of irony.

The headline here is from a July article in The Economist. It's behind a paywall, so I did not read it, but I immediately thought of what it might allude to: the idea that since internet AI pulls content from the internet in order to create its content, the results might border on plagiarism in some instances. It's up to humans to ensure that AI written content differs enough from its sources to avoid trampling on copyrights.

You may be wondering when I'm going to "get to the point" and discuss the actual topic of this post. 😉 Here goes.

About a month ago, I had an email exchange with a regular reader who told me that she had discovered a passion for pictorial art quilting; a method of quilting using a stylized image from an actual photo as the underlying design. I nosed around the 'net for some further info and found a tutorial on WeAllSew. (The image of the pear below is from that tutorial in case you're interested.) From looking at images of the quilts that crafters had created using this method, it suddenly occurred to me what the results reminded me of: French impressionism paintings. When I did a search to confirm my opinion on the similarity of the two art forms, the first AI sentence was: "You are spot on!"

image courtesy of WeAllSew...

Like I stated in the title of this post, it felt weird to be complimented like that. This was also the first time that I had received AI results that seemed so personal. It made me comprehend – immediately – how a vulnerable individual might come to believe that chatting with an AI bot is a substitute for interactions with live human beings.

In my case, however, what stood out from the get-go was that – unlike even an anonymous comment here on my blog – this was an expression of admiration straight out of the ether, impacting no one but me. As I said: weird... and extremely disconcerting.

Then I tried something else. I asked AI about me. Specifically, I asked, "How trustworthy is eSheep Designs blog?"

Here's what it reported:

AI's summary of this blog's trustworthiness...

It wasn't a random choice to ask about the "trustworthiness" factor. AI enhancements have made many things impossible to trust, even in the sewing world. For example, Etsy has apparently been bombarded with AI generated patterns that are literally unusable — but that might be a whole other blog post.

Anyway, I did a few more inquiries about me and received more or less the same type of findings. My opinion? AI certainly knows more about me than my average reader does. By sifting through everything I've ever written here and cross referencing my various profiles (at places like AllFreeSewing and Spoonflower), it collectively "knows" every detail that I've ever shared on the internet.

Which means that this little experiment made me quite thankful that I've always been somewhat wary of sharing details about me on the internet.

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Check out crafty classes at Creativebug! [affiliate link]

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I'm just one person, but I don't think we should be embracing AI with open arms. Yes, it some ways, its rise seems inevitable (shades of Terminator, which is hardly a reassuring comparison), but when we look at how much AI has advanced over the past few years, we should be saying "Hey, let's slow down a bit" rather than "Race you to the cliff!"

Oh, and to get back to the challenge that a fellow blogger did for an AI generated simple craft tutorial? Nowadays, you can get AI to do an entire craft video tutorial...

I clicked on the first link but didn't watch the entire thing. It was enough for me to see that a person can now use AI tools to make complete videos showing someone crafting with wood. A recent article in the newspaper – that we still get delivered once a week – showed a woman doing some sort of handiwork with a smartphone strapped to her head. She was being paid to film herself doing <whatever> so that AI could replicate it. 😖

This is where we're at now. People actively taking part in destroying their own livelihoods. Everyday AI content proliferating our lives and making it difficult for us to know what to trust. And occasionally, AI might pay you a compliment, just to mess with your mind.

If you keep up with the news at all, you already know that what I've brought up in this post is just the tip of a gargantuan iceberg.

Should we be okay with this? Let me know your thoughts.

'Til next... 🇨🇦🍁