Mad about Magazines

Most knitters and crocheters are collectors; of yarn, of course, but also tools and patterns. We often collect these things knowing full well we won’t live long enough to make all of the things. There’s even a term for it: SABLE or “Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy.” I’m no exception, but for a long time I’ve had a specific, insane collection: craft magazines.

It started with the Good Housekeeping annual crochet issues and Crochet Today! magazines (dating myself there), and it grew into any publication I could find. I have at least one issue of every Interweave publication, I’m pretty positive.

You want to know what’s really funny about this, though? I found almost all of them in grocery stores. Not in the register line, of course, but every grocery store has a display somewhere of more targeted publications. For a long time, there were a myriad of yarn magazines to choose from.

Then my local store stopped carrying them, and I never got around to making trips to the local yarn shops or Barnes and Noble to find them. I didn’t really miss them, either. With Ravelry, I could find any pattern I was looking for. I’m in guilds and on Youtube for techniques I need to learn in a pinch. They were out of sight, so they were out of mind. I must not have been alone, since the company who owned Interweave declared bankruptcy a little while back.

However, I recently had to go to a different grocery store, and to my utter amazement, they had multiple publications I could choose from! A little nostalgic, I picked up three promising titles.

I forgot how fun it was to thumb through print magazines. And the designs! You get just as many as a bound book for less than half the price (which is also the price of some single Ravelry patterns these days). They’re designs that I wouldn’t have found on my own, and there were handfuls that I’d love to start today.

So, I’m taking it as a wake-up call. Interweave did get purchased, and should continue to print. I’m going to make a point to go to the yarn shops or book store to buy issues I like. Anyone have any publication recommendations for me? Leave them in the comments!