I do not like the plastic bags either. The thing is, I make sure when I buy a magazine that the patterns are in it, my SIL bought one and the patterns were nicely torn out. So I can see the bag, but you can not see what you are buying. Some covers look so good and there is nothing great inside.

I have also given away most of my mags. Don't subscribe any more. But I do check out the quilting mags from our local library. The only issue that cannot be checked out is the current one. All other issues (usually for the past 1-2 years) can circulate. So I get to carefully peruse all the patterns I want. It's a great resource.

I think they do it to try and make people buy the mag. If I can't see what's inside I'm certainly not going to buy it.

My guess is they wrap it so someone does not pull the patterns out.

I did notice that at the checkout in the grocery store & any thoughts of buying it left when I found it sealed in plastic. I don't know their motive for this but I'd be willing to bet sales will be way down. Then maybe, just maybe they will stop the practice.

I think this is a double-edged sword situation. We want the magazines to continue to be published but we don't want the advertising...which pays the bills. We want magazines to be complete and pristine with any attached templates/instructions but we don't want the plastic wrapper that insures that happens. When I was a new quilter (and less discriminating!) I had to subscribe to every magazine out there. Some I started with premier issues and stayed with them till they closed shop. Most of the time they came damaged in the mail. I hated that and would suggest to the publisher that all magazines should come in plastic. Now I don't subscribe to any magazines because it seems to me that over the 30yrs I have been a quilter the magazines just re-invent the same wheels over and over. I really enjoyed Quilter's Home when Mark Lipinski was the editor...but then I have a really weird sense of humor and this magazine was not, and was not ever intended to be, primarily a pattern magazine.

Thank you for the tip about OQM. I just subscribed. We have so many eyes looking across the internet for goodies, that hardcopy paper magazines are going to start going the way of snail mail. Saves a lot of trees and storage space. :-)

Great idea!

I've cut back on my mag' subscriptions and hate that the one's I'd like to thumb through are in plastic. As it's been said, there are tons on the internet and here too.

I use to subscribe to all the quilt mags too. I decided to stop
because so many of them I'd look through and nothing interested me. I decided to just go to the store and decide for myself if I really needed it. I've come across the plastic situation too. I decided that meant I didn't need it.
The only mags I subsrcibe to anymore are Quilt Quilts and Fons and Porter. I'll just stick with those. :thumbup: