A MAGAZINE FOR EVERY KNITTER by guest blogger Jana

A MAGAZINE FOR EVERY KNITTER by guest blogger Jana

Here’s a challenge for you: how many knitting magazines are available to you within, say, 20 miles of where you are right now? The answer is…well, there’s no way you could possibly count them. Just keeping track of the ones at Looking Glass is pretty overwhelming, and if you add in the ones you can find at newsstands or the fabric store, plus the online mags, you’d never get anything made if you tried to look at all of them. Is there a perfect magazine, the one that will fulfill you in the deepest way and to which you will always be true? Not for me, and I’ve looked at pretty much all of them at one time or another. But I am going to mention a few of my favorites (please keep in mind that Kay and Sheila have both, separately, called my taste in knitting patterns “odd”).

I will always be loyal to Vogue Knitting – admittedly in a sort of doggy, uncomplaining despite the short walks and lousy food way. Vogue Knitting was the first knitting magazine I ever saw (the very first issue of the new VK, back in the fall/winter of 1982). I’ve subscribed to it ever since, even when I was stone broke. Yes, there are usually lots of errors in the patterns. Yes, some of the patterns cross that fine line from fashionably trendy to what were they thinking? I don’t care. I like having a magazine that will reliably show me patterns I won’t find anywhere else. No other magazine published Tom Scott or Wenlan Chia (Twinkle) until after the bandwagon left the barn. Plus Elizabeth Zimmerman used to write for VK. I heart VK and always will.

Interweave Knits is, I find, consistent with the patterns I wouldn’t mind wearing and maybe would want to knit. Plus it has good articles and a great layout.

Rowan Magazine is more in the coffee table realm. I usually love the winter issues and hate the summer ones. I don’t care for Rowan Yarns and am well past the age demographic for many of the patterns. But it is always fun to see lacy frocks worn with wellies by a pale model strolling across the misty moor.

Knitscene is always entertaining, and usually has one or two patterns I like. The premier issue of Knitwear was a slam-dunk, and I’m hoping will continue. Debbie Bliss puts out pretty but not, to me, very interesting magazines. Verena burbles well over into the Eurotrash look, but the accessorizing of the knitwear is mucho caliente. I wish there were a reliable source for the German Rebecca around, because it has always been great.

Magazines I’m not crazy about: Knit ‘n’ Style, Simple Knitting, Creative Knitting, Knitter’s (oh, the horror of its color choices!), Simply Knitting, For the Love of Knitting. I realize I am alone in most of these opinions. And that’s ok. Like I said, a magazine for every knitter.

(I haven’t mentioned the online mags Twist Collective or Knitty. Both worthy, but I don’t follow them closely enough to have much of an opinion. My fellow guest blogger Annie seems crazy for both of them.)