Blaming others for your mistake

Recently I have been watching some comments on Facebook and they have really bothered me. I am part of a cross stitch community, and they provided a year long stitch-along for free for everyone. The pattern was hosted on their website, so it was free for everyone to stitch. Now on the website it clearly stated that “This design is only available for free until 1^st January 2024.” Now, when you download the pattern each month it says on the front of the pattern, “This design is only available as a free download until 1^st January 2024.”

The pattern is released on the 1^st of each month, and it has always been posted on the first of the month, so once December is released you have 31 days to download that part of the pattern. Yes, the website is hosted in Australia so that means that the pattern is available in North America on the last day of the previous month so we will have 31 days to download the pattern. So, everyone has the same amount of time to download the pattern.

During last year, there were several reminders on the Facebook group remaindering everyone that the pattern would be only available until January 1^st. So, January 1^st rolls around and the new stitch along for 2024 is posted and of course the 2023 pattern is removed just like all the reminders said would happen. I think you can see what is going to happen next, there are people within the group that didn’t download the pattern because they figured it would still be available in North America on the 31^st of December. We get the pattern a day ahead of the 1^st of each month, so why would it still be available.

What bothered me was as soon as the pattern was taken down, someone immediately was asking someone in the Facebook group to share the December pattern with them. This pattern does have a copyright on it, and it is against copyright laws to share a PDF copy of a pattern. Besides this happening, the designer of the pattern received lots of emails about why was the pattern taken down at midnight Sydney time, as it would have been removed in each individual person’s time zone. Removing a pattern based on your time zone is extremely expensive to do, and given it was a free pattern and tons of reminders were posted on the website as well as within the Facebook group.

I feel sorry for the designer because they give a lot of time to the community and the designing of these patterns, and they don’t deserve to be treated like they have been treated. This same designer has been accused of stealing motifs from other people. The motifs that have been used in all these designs are antique motifs and everyone can use them.  It hurts me to see that people don’t appreciate what they are getting for free. Being rude to a designer isn’t appropriate when they have given everyone tons of their time to the community for free.

Given everything they have had to go through the website now says, “This design is only available for free until 1^st January 2025 – this means it is no longer free from midnight Sydney Australian time on the 31^st December 2024, after that it will cost US$10 to download.” Now, when you download the pattern each month it says on the front of the pattern, “This design is only available as a free download until 1^st January 2025. That means all the free download links will be removed at midnight Sydney Australian time on the 31^st December.”

Blaming someone else when it is clearly your mistake is totally wrong. If you stumble along blindly, life is going to smack you at some point. There is no one to blame but yourself. So, if you are someone that is every thinking that you might want to stitch a pattern that is free, grab it immediately to ensure you have it. Please, before you blame someone else for a mistake, check to make sure who was in the wrong because in some cases it might be you.