Common Lettuce Craft Abbreviations & Slang (aka the Crafty Lingo Cheat Sheet)

Here is a list of crafty lingo and community-specific abbreviations you may seen thrown around. Many thanks to @jMi for compiling and posting this list on the Dead Site originally!

  • ATC: Artist Trading Cards. They are the size of sports trading cards but can be any art form or medium you like.
  • CAL: Crochet-a-long or Craft-a-long
  • CIP: Crocheting in Public
  • CO: Completed Object
  • DCN/DC/DC#: Delivery Confirmation Number (common in swapping)
  • DD/DH/DS/DW: referring to one’s dear daughter, husband, son, spouse, or wife
  • DIY: Do It Yourself (possibly the most important of all of these!)
  • DPNs: double-pointed knitting needles (there are numerous abbreviations used in knitting and crocheting patterns, and some mean different things, so check the actual pattern guidelines and the wider web for clarification on those)
  • EPP: English Paper Piecing, a method used in quilt-making
  • ETA: Edited to Add
  • Exchange: An informal event, such as a holiday card exchange, organized by a member for fun in the Lounge. This is a voluntary event, and falls outside Lettuce Craft rules or oversight. Members participate at their own risk, and may or may not receive a card from other participants.
  • FBA: Full bust adjustment, for clothing patterns
  • FO: Finished Object
  • FOC: Friend of Craftster (a status gained on Craftster when paying an annual fee or volunteering as a Swap Angel)
  • Frog: To rip out stitches in a yarn project like knitting or crochet. (A play on words; Frogs make the sound “ribbit”. When you discover a mistake in your, you ‘rip it’, aka frog it.)
  • FPP: Foundation paper piecing, a method used in quilt making
  • HTV: heat transfer vinyl
  • IG: Instagram
  • ISO: In Search Of
  • IYP: Invite Your Partner (swap). Instead of being assigned a swap partner, people who want to swap with each other both sign up for these swaps together.
  • KAL: Knit-a-long
  • KIP: Knitting in Public
  • LC: Lettuce Craft! The site and community
  • LV: Little Visitor (swap). Participants send each other a stuffie/doll/toy who goes on adventures for several weeks, and is then returned home with souvenirs and photos of their visit.
  • LYS: Local Yarn Shop/Store
  • MAF Swap: Make a Friend Swap. Participants get to know each other and craft things that first represent themselves, then craft something based on what they’ve learned about their new friend.
  • Mod: Moderator
  • NWS/NSW/NSFW: Not Work Safe or Not Safe for Work
  • OTT: One Tiny Thing Swap. Participants send only one item, tiny in size but not in time spent and quality.
  • OWS: Ongoing Wish Swap. Chain-style swap in which someone posts a wishlist, and then someone else promises to send something from that wishlist and they post their own wishlist that someone else chooses from.
  • PHD: Project Half Done
  • PM: Private/Personal Message
  • PO: Post Office
  • RAK: Random Act of Kindness, something folks around here practice often. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
  • st or sts (lower-case): stitch or stitches
  • STS (in caps): Shop the Swap. Like a virtual bartering craft fair in which “selling” a finished, crafted item to another participant grants you points that you can then spend on things other participants are offering.
  • Swap: An official exchange of crafted items, around a theme or topic, organized by an LC member. All participants are guaranteed to receive a package. If their partner flakes and does not send, the organizer must find an Angel to craft for them. Organizers run a swap with approval & oversight by the Swap Moderators, and they must follow all the rules of Lettuce Craft. (Must have its own thread, a gallery thread for sharing pictures, etc.) Anything else that members choose to participate in, in the Lounge, such as sending greeting cards at the holidays or a personal swap between 2 members is considered a “Trade” or “Exchange”, and falls outside any obligations or responsibility of Lettuce Craft.
  • TM: The artist Teesha Moore, or her style of wonky embroidered patches
  • Trade: Also known as a personal swap; when 2 members decide to exchange crafted items outside of a formal swap. In this case, the trade is done at the participants own risk. If their partner fails to send, LC is not responsible for finding an Angel to craft for them.
  • Tut/tute: Tutorial
  • UFO: Unfinished Object
  • VM: Vegetable Matter, aka the natural barnyard stuff that’s really difficult to get out of a sheep’s fleece
  • WIP: Work in Progress
  • WPI: Wraps Per Inch, a measurement of yarn thickness.

Other Important links/terms you’ll see on here:

  • Dead Site, Dead Place, Deadster: Refers to Craftster, the predecessor of Lettuce Craft, which was shut down in 2019 by the company who purchased it. The community lives on, however! :muscle:
  • Etsy - Craft website where you can sell your stuff. Not affiliated with Lettuce Craft. Various other online platforms also exist for selling handmade goods, but Etsy has been the largest and best known. http://www.Etsy.com
  • Hoopla - art (usually cross stitched or embroidered) framed in embroidery hoops
  • Pinterest - a website to create your own pinboards wishlist, helpful in swaps. Not affiliated with LC. http://pinterest.com/
  • Ravelry: very large online yarn-based community and database of patterns, yarns, and projects. If you wonder why Lettuce Craft doesn’t have more knitting and crocheting than it does, it’s because most of the projects are posted to Ravelry. https://www.Ravelry.com
  • Sticky - a discussion thread that is pinned to the top of a board in the forum so it is always in the same place, for important info
  • Swap Angel: a member who volunteers to gift a crafted package to a swap participant who did not receive a package from their assigned swap partner.
  • Zetti - An art style named by Teesha Moore http://www.zettiology.com
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Awesome resource for our new members. Thank you for putting it together/updating it and reposting @calluna!

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Excellent! I am still learning some new lingo…

Me too! I looked up a few things to add to the list that I didn’t know. :grin:
If anyone has additions, let me know!

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great list!

Also, “not safe for work” can also be NSFW
and NSFL is “not safe for life”

and PHD is project half done.

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Well then, I have a Phd in PHD’s!!

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How about adding what qualifies as a “Swap” on the site? You know, official, follows the rules of Lettuce Craft, has it’s own thread, gallery, etc.? Anything else that is for a group to participate in is a) posted in the Lounge, and b) is titled as a either a “trade” or “exchange” and falls outside of LC swap rules and obligations.

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oooh - this is awesome.

How about adding “frog” to the list for the yarnie folks?

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More intensive personal swaps (trades/exchanges) would be good to fall under this banner as well.

Good point. At least with a personal swap a maker can post what they made w/o it being a swap in the title - as far as LettuceCraft is concerned it’s a member posting something they made that they may mention they made for another member.

And we do have the personal swap thread as well :slight_smile:

That’s right!

I’ve gone ahead and added Swap, Trade & Exchange into our list of definitions above. (@TheMistressT, you are totally able to do so as well, with your Magic Mod Powers!) I hope the definitions I provided meet with everyone’s approval. Feel free to tweek if you think I’ve left out a key element.

@Animegirlie, I also added in Frog for you as well. :slightly_smiling_face:

I also changed the topic title so that folks have an easier time finding it in the search function. Not everyone might remember the keyword ‘lingo’.

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Thank you so much, Jennie. I’m in a rough spot so it was going to be a while before I got around to the updates, and I feel better having it all be officially sanctioned language. :+1:

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THANK YOU!! I love a good list :slight_smile: this is super helpful.