I picked up the premiere issue of a new craft magazine today. My two first impressions are (1) I like it, and (2) whoa, this must be sponsored by Hancock Fabrics. For some reason #2 is a bit of a bummer, but that’s mostly just because I have yet to find an HF store where I enjoy shopping. On the other hand, their products seem fine… it’s just a case of bad vibes from the staff (at multiple locations, I don’t know what the deal is with that). So anyway, just be prepared for Hancock ads on every other page.

As for content, there are several fashion pages that list the sewing patterns for each item. I love the retro jacket above (Vogue8123), and the green chunky shrug is cute (pattern included in the mag). My only disappointment here is that all of the several shrug and shawl patterns happen to be crochet.

What really sold me on it, though, was seeing some truly useful technique advice. In the Q&A section, someone asks how to create a lined Christmas stocking without having to sew two completely separate pieces. Since I’ve been wondering the same thing about making lined tote bags, I was psyched to find the answer, complete with a diagram. [The gist of the answer is to line up all four pieces in a certain order before you sew around three sides and then pull everthing right side out.]

Other features included a fun article about movies that contain moments of sewing, an interview with a funky fabric designer, some beading tips, pointers for using an embroidery machine (these were very pretty), and of course lots of shopping tips.

Looks like this comes out just four times a year. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the spring issue.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2005 at 8:37 am and is filed under General, Sewing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.