Quilting Magazines

I dearly love Fons & Porter. You're quite right that personal style/taste will make some magazines useless for you and some simply wonderful. I need to write a love letter to F & P. I've spent a terrible amount of $s searching for a white pen/pencil that would make fine lines and dots on dark fabric. F & P has done it. They call it a mechanical pencil and say it uses ceramic lead. I have no idea what that is and probably you wouldn't want to chew on one - but by Golly, it works just great. Meanwhile, back to the magazines, your best bet will be to buy them 'in person' for a few issues until you decide which one(s) fit you best. Polly

My 2 favorites are Fons & Porter and Quiltmaker. I take at least 3 or 4 more, but these are my favorites.

Sherry Starr

Thanks Polly - I am gonna go look for those pens. I had about given up on ever getting a really good white marker.

You're welcome, Cheryl. I tried mine out when I was appliqueing/thread painting the underside of a dachshund's ear. I didn't like the first draw and actually was able to erase the line and give it another try. Ah. How sweet it is. Polly

"CATS" Thanks Polly - I am gonna go look for those pens. I had

I stopped buying them because of the price - almost $7 per magazine today!

you save so much on a subscription though, it's ridiculous. I just paid for 2 years of QNM, just under 40 dollars, which is 2 dollars an issue and Fons and Porter was 38 something, slightly less issues, so roughly 3 dollars an issue. Which makes a subscription very good value if you read it. I think I spent more on mags in the 6 months before getting these subscriptions than I did on the subscriptions for 2 years.

I know some people don't like the revamped QNM, but I really like it. I had liked Fons and Porter, but the first issue I got by subscription was a little disappointing, I'm hoping it's a one off, you can't expect to like everything!

Cheers Anne

lol sorry, but had to chuckle.

US mags are about $15AUS here in newsagents, and got as high as nearly $20 when the exchange rate bottomed out.

Even our local mags are about $9.

"The girls" who sew here subscribe to a lot of magazines as a group through me. I get to run the "library" lol. ATM we get QNM, F&P, McCall's, Quiltmaker, AQS, Australian P&Q, DUQ, and NZQ. Others we buy if there is something interesting in a single issue. I often get the UK magazines if I see them as I like the European styles. And I get Japanese magazines when I can too, as their aesthetic is very different to our "Western" view.

It is a pleasant luxury to be able to get them all. As individuals scattered around a rural area we would not get to see most of these at all.

Have you got a make for the pencil, Polly, please - so I look for the right thing and not what the LQS or other thinks I mean!

Thanks.

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~ (uk)

I dearly love Fons & Porter. You're quite right that personal style/taste

Sure, Sally, happy to show you. Go to

and type: ceramic pencil in their search box. There's lots I don't know. (Boy, is that an understatement!) I don't know if you have an LQS and if F&P ceramic pencils are available there or if they must be bought online. There have been times when I wanted to mark fine dots or lines for matching points and previous white, yellow and silver pencils failed me. Maybe, just maybe, I can revisit that sort of piecing better equipped. Well . . . I said 'maybe'. Polly

I also really enjoy QNM - the images and ideas I come away with really inspire me to try things I wouldn't know about if it weren't for the mag. Musicmaker

Thanks - just knowing what the pencil and pack look like is a help when hunting.

I have two alsome LQSs but don't want them to sell me what they imagine is the correct thing.

Now I will start a little hunt.

Thanks again

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~ (uk)

Sure, Sally, happy to show you. Go to and type:

This is so true. I have to check them out (in the store) and see which one or two I like best. Wally World carries a good selection of Quilting mags.

Another reason I stopped getting them was I was seeing too many of the same patterns and too many repetitious ads month after month. I need to spend some time at the rag rack and see what's new.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I can get several yards of nice fabric on sale for that! Now that I have to live on a fixed income, luxuries are becoming a thing of the past. I just dropped $100 at the local Sewing Machine store or a "servicing" of my NH, the correct Janome bobbins for same - and a foot with a 1/4" guide for my new Singer. Ouch!

I don't care for the Japanese quilts. They're just too different.

(brevity snip)

Brace yourself - LQS fabric is $25 per metre and more here. Just ask the girls from the UK about the cost of fabric!

Looks as though your fabric is more expensive than ours Cheryl.

Ours is between US $17.65 - 19.62, so probably almost double the US prices.

I always read with wonder the posts that say 'I liked it so I bought 5 yards' but I don't know what I am going to use it for. I have been known to buy 1.1/2yards, but that was for a specific purpose.

I have never bought backing fabric especially for a quilt - I piece or if machine quilting use a sheet. To buy backing as most instructions say would be almost $100 wouldn't it. ouch!

That is one of the reasons I never do Mystery Quilts - the requirements list has always knocked me unconscious!

Every inch is put to use here.

When I know what I want and don't need to see, I order from an on-line shop that does free posting if you spend over £25 - cheaper than the petrol to go to the LQS (£5 - $9.8), but thats another story.

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~ (uk)

Brace yourself - LQS fabric is $25 per metre and more

No, please don't - it hurts >g< . In message , CATS writes

I've always been a QNM supporter and subscriber, but I'm not very impressed by the revamped editions. There are too many essays in it in my opinion. I really don't care what John Flynn thinks of things.....unless he can teach me a new technique or show a me a pattern. I don't really care about someone's second honeymoon in England and the trials and tribulations of the trip, unless she can relate where the unnamed shops are in the unnmamed towns she visited. Did we need a whole page to tell us there are quilters all over the world who like to spend money on fabric and not let their husbands know about it?? I, personally, don't think so. The old issues usually only had Helen Kelley's article and perhaps one from a reader or free lance writer. I'm not a person who fights change, so I had to wait and see how the subsequent issues looked before I decided about the new format. I defended it to a friend when the first issue came out, but now I'm not, her issues were valid...but I probably will keep my subscription....I do like knowing what's going on in the quilting world at shows, etc.

Why is fabric so expensive there in AU and the UK? Is it all imported? Your clothing must also be more costly than here.

We (UK) do still make some of our own - at least it is printed here? Whether we actually make cotton cloth, I'm not so sure. There are many mill towns in the north of England (for wool and cotton), I don't know how many are still operating. Much of our quilting fabric is imported from the US. . In message , Marie Dodge writes