Thursday, August 18, 2016

Magazines How Many Are Enough?

I have a whole bookcase filled with magazines. And I'm trying to get rid of a lot of them, selling them on ebay, giving them away, leaving them at the library just to make room for the new ones that keep on arriving every month.

After my time in China, I've found that digital magazine subscriptions are a great option, especially not to have the bulk and the paper to keep around. But you do have to remember that you have them available to read. I haven't managed that quite yet...

How much input is enough though? That's what I keep coming back to as I sort through all these magazines. Do I need all of the new product info, new technique instruction, project descriptions, etc.? I need some of it, because it supplements what I get online and in the books that I own or read. It's more immediately accessible, so yes, I still need some magazines. But not ALL of them.

So, here are the Magazines that I'm really glad I can subscribe to:

Quilting Arts is still interesting and inspiring and I'm glad I've been subscribing all these years. It has changed somewhat over the years, but that's to be expected.

From the same publisher , Cloth, Paper, Scissors is great too, although I no longer subscribe to it.

Surface Design Association Journal - Even though I haven't been doing much dyeing or surface design work lately, I still am a member of SDA, and this magazine is still top-notch and worth the price of membership.

Selvedge - oh goodness it's such a splurge as it's printed in the UK, but it's so very worth it, the writing and the photography are so high-quality and the editorial bent is very different than US magazines which is refreshing. I've just recently economized and gone to receiving the digital version only.

Machine Quilting Unlimited is a newer magazine, I subscribed to it when I was at the Houston IQF a couple years ago. It's got a lot of great information about the subject, great up-close pictures and clear directions. There are of course, quite a few articles about long-arm or computerized quilting which I'm not interested in, but the rest of it is worth it to me to subscribe.

Fiber Art Now - I think they were initially attempting to replace the very-much-missed Fiber Arts Magazine, some of the first few issues approached it, but overall they hadn't quite gotten there, so I stopped subscribing, but I've just renewed. It has really improved and is a very interesting quarterly publication.

I have to say, I'm a little sad about Quilter's Newletter Magazine going out of business, but I haven't subscribed to it in a very long time. I do miss Fiberarts a whole lot more.

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