I should really stop getting so many magazines -- but I just love cruising through them. A year ago I had a long talk with myself and told myself to clean house -- the bookshelves were groaning and needed some help. I listened, went through all the magazines, keeping only 2 years worth and extracting articles and patterns that I liked from the others. Those articles that I removed I put in plastic sleeves. After sorting they went into notebooks. I promised myself I would do this each year, going through the oldest year. Now, instead of a full bookcase of magazines, I have notebooks on one shelf and magazines on another, books on another. . . oh, my.
I started with Quilting Newsletter sometime in the '70s. Decided I didn't like that one because while it had articles, it was loaded with events so in a year's time it wasn't pertinent. Kept quilting but didn't subscribe to anything for another 30 years. Dropped Fons and Porter this last year, just fell out of love with their patterns. Currently I get:
American Patchwork and Quilting -- like it, usually find something interesting
American Quilter -- the magazine that offers a challenge
Quilt -- very usable, good patterns, good directions
The Quilter Magazine --another of my favorites
Quilt World -- love the access to the online editions, am considering this might be a more convenient way to subscribe to any magazine. Well, good as long as the computer works!
Quiltmaker -- lovely designs, had this script for a long time
McCalls -- One of the first script when I got back to quilting more. I used to watch their magazine for quilt patterns, even saved one from 1976 for a bicentennial quilt.
I guess I should add, that I'm working on a project teaching less fortunate folks to quilt. Figure if someone can learn a new skill (sewing) and make something that s/he can use or donate, that person will feel better about themselves. So, some of my quest for ideas is for this project -- and I have many folks who now take my cast off magazines. I'm also collecting used machines and rehabbing them for this project so I'm learning a new skill too.