Good Morning, Quilters!
It’s been a tumultuous summer for the quilting industry.
First, F&W Media stunned the quilt world with the announcement that after 47 years, Quilters Newsletter Magazine will no longer be published. QNM, founded by Bonnie and George Leman, was the first magazine dedicated to quilting. The magazine is credited with helping to launch the revival of the quilt industry in the 1970s. It is the end of an era!
Then, the American Quilter Society announced it will no longer publish quilting books. The AQS will continue offering quilt shows and more importantly….publishing American Quilter Magazine.
If you page to the back of the magazine, you will find a step by step quilt tutorial by Yours Truly. (Note to self–talk to A. Hammel about moving My Line to the front of the magazine-perhaps the cover.) In addition to this exceptional feature, you’ll find inspiration from quilt show winners, patterns, articles, product reviews. It remains my favorite quilt magazine.
OTHER FAVORITE MAGAZINES
In addition to American Quilter, I regularly read Machine Quilting Unlimited and Generation Q.
Generation Q is a smaller magazine-think Reader’s Digest –filled with modern projects, trends, patterns and interviews.
And Machine Quilting Unlimited–is just that–dedicated to Machine Quilting–and who doesn’t love that?
What about YOU?
What are YOUR favorite magazines? Why are they your favorites? Do you subscribe or purchase at your local quilt shop? Do you prefer online magazines or copies you can hold in your lap? What do YOU look for in a magazine? Patterns? Inspiration? Interviews?
We’d LOVE to hear!
ECOMMERCE SALE
Once you’ve found your inspiration, you might want to pop over to Craftsy’s WEEKEND SALE on kits, fabric, thread and much more! To get the best prices of the summer, use my affiliate link HERE.
What could be better on a hot summer day than a magazine, a glass of lemonade and a new project!
Happy Reading and Happy Stitching!
Lori
PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt and are intended for personal use only. Feel free to re-blog, pin or share with attribution to The Inbox Jaunt. For all other purposes, please contact me at lckennedy@hotmail.com. Thanks!
26 comments
Marta
Saddened about Q. Newsletter… it is my favorite…There is no rack in our bathroom for a computer.. however, the quilting magazine travels to every room in the house at one time or another. I read, study photos, work along with a tutorial, etc.. Right now, I am working on one for grandson’s OCT birthday and think there is nothing anywhere else like it. It is a 2 year old issue. Good bye, will miss you much!
susan hilsenbeck
Like many others, I was a very long time subscriber to QNM and am sorry to see it go. I also subscribe to AQS, Quilting Arts, and the SAQA Journal. I like a physical form so I can touch it, tear out bits that I want and toss what I don’t, although I have to admit that the tossing sometimes takes a long time. I think e-media have a ways to go to reproduce the same ability to excerpt and permanently file. Reading an e-document is also a different cognitive experience.
Finally, I am not a big fan of Pinterest as a substitute. I do not think that a picture and tweet-like caption in anyway replaces the thoughtfully written (thank you Lori), photographed and edited content of our magazines.
Cathy
I have been a long time subscriber to QNM & am very sad to see it go. Just my opinion but I think there would be some others in the F&W line that should go before QNM. In addition, I subscribe to Quiltmaker, AQS, American Patchwork & Quilting & I will pick up Machine Quilting & Quilters Art when it looks like there are several interesting articles in them. I prefer to have a ‘real’ magazine in my hands like several others have voiced as well. I, too, feel the internet has been a major player in the demise of books & magazines.
Janet Licari
I did not know Quilters Newsletter was going away…I have had a subscription for over 30 years and the sister magazine Quiltmaker also. I will have to look into this. I have not been keeping up on my reading well lately and missed this announcement!
Lois
I like AQS but I also like Quilt Mania to get a bigger vision of the quilting world. Simply Moderne is also a favorite. As a quilt shop used to be owner, there are so many patterns available free and the cost of fabric is high. But I don’t see an end to the quilting passion. There are many younger women who are taking it up.
Pamela North
My tastes and abilities have changed which means I no longer buy some magazines but I like and use AQS. In Australia I also buy Australian Quilters Companion with its accompanying DVD connected to a quilt in the magazine.
gladquilts
Lori, thank you for keeping us informed of changes in our world of quilting. I like to support my local shops. I prefer to hold the magazines and re-read them. I use a computer, but there is nothing like sitting down with a cup of tea or glass of lemonade and dreaming about my next project. I just read my first article from Gen Q and think I will subscribe.
Vivian
I am heartbroken over the demise of QNM!! It was the first magazine I subscribed to when I started quilting and the only one I kept a continuous subscription to because they covered the whole spectrum of the quilt world. I also currently subscribe to MQU and recently renewed a subscription to Primitive Quilts and Projects.
For other publications (pretty much all the ones others have mentioned here), I will purchase copies at stores or buy digital back issues only if there is something in particular in them that I’m interested in. I do like having a print magazine and often refer back to old issues when I want to read up on a “new to me” topic or quilt design that I’ve become interested in. But I have also periodically had Quilters World subscriptions which I liked because I could download new and back issues to my computer (rather than just read them from a website) which makes them easy to “store”, refer back to and search.
I plan to subscribe to Gen Q since I now know their focus is not just on the Modern Quilt movement but that they have also been chronicling the changes in the quilt industry which is a topic I want to follow.
Cheryl Gebhart
I subscribe to Machine Quilting Unlimited, American Quilter, and Quilting Arts, which is my favorite. I much prefer a physical magazine over a digital one, which I find I don’t end up reading. I hadn’t heard that QNM wasn’t going to be published any longer. I used to subscribe to it many years ago. I recently heard about Generation Q, so I think I will check it out. I wish I could find a copy of it on the newsstand to try out just one issue, but haven’t found it yet. I may need to subscribe for a year to see what I think.
Pam Marbourg
What strikes me more is exactly what are the implications of these 2 major players in the quilting world leaving the field? I hope it does not mean that quilting is on a downhill slide. Right now we live in a quilting world full of fabrics, designers, ideas, enthusiasm, patterns. I hope this is not a sign of an end to come. Quilter’s newsletter was my favorite magazine. I Don’t know why they are folding and am very sad.
Thank you Lori for all your great and generous machine quilting lessons and advice.
Leslie in MN
The owners of my local quilt shop, Bear Patch in White Bear Lake, MN, said that the industry is changing. They said they won’t be in business in 10 years. Older quilters are dying off and the younger ones aren’t as likely to buy yardage. The prices of fabrics are getting so high, it’s hard for the shops to buy and stock larger ranges of fabrics. Free patterns and the internet is spelling the demise of print forms of information, including magazines. I feel like a dinosaur!
WordPress.com Support
I think it reflects a change to online resources.
Jannette B.
I still receive Quilter’s World – have had subscriptions to many others over the years. I think that the plethora of info / patterns on the internet has been partly to blame for the demise of the print media (even our local newspaper subscriptions have fallen off as more people read online). I have years worth of magazines set aside, with favourite patterns marked, but I find that my taste in quilts has changed over the years, so I have tossed many of them without a second glance. I don’t have the time or money to make all the quilts I want to make, so why hang on to those magazines. Now I buy one if it catches my eye, but I have a self-imposed rule that at least 3 patterns have to appeal to me (and I still don’t end up making most of them!). BUT, I still prefer a printed pattern as opposed to online patterns – I love to “tick off” the steps as I cut / sew the pieces together, and I think my hubby would have a fit if I did that to the computer!
P.S. I’ve also never heard of / seen Generation Q – I’ll watch for it now!
Victoria Miner
Though I spend time on the internet looking at pinterest, quilt blogs, etc., I really prefer a magazine in my hand. I don’t subscribe to any magazines now, but rather like to look through them at the grocery or bookstore and only buy ones that have several patterns that interest me. BHG American Patchwork and Quilting is pretty consistently good, occasionally McCall’s or QuiltersWorld. I subscribed to Primitive Quilts last year but let it lapse because it had too many ‘cutesy’ things for my taste.
Like others, I always save quilting magazines, and must say they take up a heck of a lot of space in my sewing room 🙂 I do enjoy getting them out from time to time, re-discovering great patterns, seeing appealing color combinations, and just generally finding inspiration.
Evan Stelma
I am so incredibly sad to see Quilter’s Newsletter go.
The editorial staff successfully breached the chasm between the contemporary and traditional quilter as well as the hand and machine finishers. As a quilter who lives in a very rural area, it was lovely to see the awarded and spectacular quilts from shows I can’t possibly attend. The magazine was inspiration to keep improving my own craft. I also was tremendously thankful for the show schedules they kept the rest of us up on.
As a decades long subscriber, I will miss this publication almost as much as my local quilt shop and group which closed two years ago. The take away is this: don’t forget to support your LQS or publications which are important to you. Reading online, learning from You Tube videos, and purchasing from an Amazon fabric store might help the bottom line, but we are bound to lose more local bricks and mortar stores if we don’t support them.
Thanks for the new magazine ideas…and let’s hope one of these other publications can include some of what we loved about QNM!
Rebecca Shaffer
I subscribe to American Quilter, Machine Quilting Unlimited and American Patchwork and Quilting. I really liked The Quilt Life from Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims but that ceased publication about a year ago. I prefer a print copy to sit down with in the evening and browse through. I don’t use the patterns much anymore, but I like to see what people are doing. I enjoy the articles, especially the ones about machine quilting. I have never heard of Generation Q. I’ll have to look for it. I used to subscribe to a lot more magazines, but over the years I’ve cut back. As I progressed with my quilting I just felt that I had outgrown some of them. And, sadly, as someone else mentioned, I think that the quality of some has greatly decreased.
Kathi Riemer
I used to subscribe to the ‘Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine” in the ’90’s. I had stacks and stacks of them. When I stopped subscribing, I would purchase a magazine now and then, but I have really depended on the internet and quilt books for my patterns and projects. I hope it isn’t an end of the quilting era, just a a change in the media delivery.
Mary B
I like AQS, Quilters World and American Patchwork. I’ve been trying to switch myself over to digital magazines and books so that I don’t have them stacked all over the place. But, there’s something about holding that magazine in your hand that’s so satisfying. I find turning those pages that’s just very relaxing.
sunnysewsit
I, too, was sorry to hear about QNM – I had many, many copies that I donated to our local quilt guild. I love seeing all the new ideas in AQS and Quilting Arts, but I find many are new iterations of the same old piecing techniques. I recently subscribed to Missouri Star Quilt’s Block magazine, because I find precuts go together much faster.
Cheryl
It is always sad to see a magazine come to an end but I think with pinterest and the internet many people have stopped buying hard copies. I too rarely use a pattern and love to design my own quilts. When I do get a magazine, and I still do get several, I look through it over and over and then will tear out what I think I may make and pass it along to someone else. I have saved far too many magazines over the years, not making anything from them and just got tired of the piles. It feels good to give them away.
Shar
Wow, I didn’t know about QNM, but I am sad. It’s the only place you can get comprehensive news of the quilting world. Guess we’ll go without all that news. I read MQU and Quilting Arts. I stopped getting AQS several years ago as I seldom use patterns any more. I finally took the dive into the art quilt/original work pool. It’s not to say I will not go back to making pieced patterns or other’s creations, but I’m letting my creativity lead me along these days.
It’s not just the quilting world that suffers. The cooking industry has had the same thing happen with several of their more popular magazines. It is corporation politics and bottom line numbers that dictate things like that. Sad, sad, sad.
Gail
I have been a long-time QNL subscriber since the 70s so I hate to see it disappear. But my current favorite magazine is Quiltmania. I buy for inspiration and to be aware of what is “out there”.
Linda Thompson
And, so goes the way win large companies buy out the little guy. We saw that in the purchase of the Martha Pullen Industry (Sew Beautiful magazine for heirloom sewists.). Eventually they ceased publishing the magazine. It is all disappointing. a new magazine has been created with a high subscription/newsstand price. The Fons and Porter magazine and tv show went from excellent to mediocre (IMHO) after they sold out.
I’m cutting down on my magazine subscriptions. They are all looking the same, and, I am not like my friend who can just throw them away without batting an eye, but rather like Marti. If I tossed them, I would be good for increasing my stash and bus trips for a much longer time. They take up an incredible amount of space in my storage area!
I do like the AQS magazine and the Better Home and Garden publications of quilting and crafting magazines…of course, I support a local state business that employs local people. But,mother magazines are top quality and hits on all levels of interest.
Marti Morgan
I like the AQS American Quilter, and I also like Quilters World. I don’t buy too many magazines as I have a problem – I cannot throw them away. Hence a pile to large to find anymore storage for. My husband thinks I have a fire threat with my collection.
Donna
I spend wayyy too much time on the computer as it is, I want a magazine I can hold in my hands. I am always surprised at the ads, more than the articles themselves, there are usually some very exciting fabrics to drool over.
Veronica Gerhardt
I like quilt magazines that have stories about the quilters. I like to read about where they got their inspiration, if there are any stories behind the quilts, etc etc.
I will miss Quilters Newsletter. Right now I only subscribe to AQS, I sometimes buy Fons and Porter, or BHG American Patchwork and Quilting.
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