Sometimes I just wonder what I am thinking....looking at a large stack of magazines all about quilting or gardening. Enjoy reading and looking at the articles and wait for some to arrive in my mailbox. Then they go to a stack near the chair, from there to a stack in the sewing room, from there to a storage container. Sharing with the gals at quilting when the stacks get to high is often done. Now that there are so many on line magazines and the quilting board...I need to go into a 12 step program to stop renewing magazines. What do you do with yours???? Step #1 was to admit I am addicted to these colorful paper temptations.

I LOVE quilting magazines, too, and what I did was go through & cut out the patterns & articles I knew I wanted to keep and put them into a sheet protector & then a 3-ring binder. Tossed the rest, which was hard for me but felt great after.

I knew there were a lot of quilts in there that I would never want to attempt to make. Saved a LOT of space. In fact, I just pulled out a really cute miniature quilt pattern last week from my binder. Worked great!

Trina

I was lucky enough to pm in time to get a "free friend subscription" on here but due to the economy I've let all my subscriptions expire. I figure that if I do one quilt from each magazine that I have I'll still have to live to be 283 to use them all. I buy those plastic magazine holders at thrift stores and garage sales and have shelves and shelves full of them. But I love browsing my magazines. I don't know, I might think about thinning them out sometime this year.

I also love my quilting magazines......and I also hang on to my quilting catalogs..beautiful pics of quilt patterns..
like Connecting Threads..look at them over and over

I have mine in pretty cardboard magazine holders. I keep each one opened to a quilt or technique I want to try. Occasionally, I downsize them by tearing out the patterns I am interested in and putting those into a binder. What's really interesting to me is to look back at the things I Thought I wanted to make (or actually Did make), and realize that I've come a long way Baby! well, errr, ummm... at least a Short way. :-)

This can be a problem. In my quilt guild, the members bring magazines that they have read and put them on a sharing table. Anyone that wants to get one or more pick them up and bring them back when they're done. Every month there are things to look at and take home. When I moved from that area, I contributed several items. It's a great way to pass around things that another can use. I have a couple that I've kept.... I want to make a quilt from them. The others have all been recycled again.

It is so nice to know that I am in good company!

I have not renewed any subscriptions for the last year and don't plan to subscribe to anymore, mainly because there is soooo much info and patterns online.

My husband bought me a Nook Color so I could subscribe to my quilting mags and store them on the Nook. For some reason, none of the quilting magazines are using the format to make them available that way yet. Anybody know anything about this?

It's hard for me to pass up the racks that hold quilting magazines! I've got 'the bug, for sure. The other day I actually purchased one that has 3 things I'm sure I'll be making! That's my new rule....if it doesn't have anything I know that I will make...I drool and then put it back! I also give well used magazines to my churches Community Service Center where we have what some people call the "Free Store"!
An awesome place to take used articles of all kinds that others can come take for their use. (We try to encourage them to donate unwanted articles as well!)

I am leaning to this idea, especially if I haven't been inspired by anything for the past year.

I have gotten so everwhelmed with magazines that I let all of them lapse! I figure I really see one it the strore that I need I'll buy it, other wise I'm doing what some of you are, putting the ones I really like into folders and trashing the rest. It has gotten so most of the quilt mags are just advertisments and the last Quilters News Letter I got I just threw out! There wasn't anything it it that appealed to me, too far out there for me.

I also thought I could use the nook, guess not !!

Same here. Plus I found that as much as I like looking through the magazines I didn't use the patterns in them, or not enough to keep purchasing them.

At first I thought about the magazines, if we don't subscribe they will go out of business. Then started looking more closely, most of them are already on line! One even offers more on line than in the magazine. Subsriptions are less expensive for the electronic version.

Instead of cutting and ripping out the various patterns in the mags, why not copy and put the patterns in a sheet protector in a notebook for easy reference. There is nothing more disheartening than looking at a quilting magazine and looking for the next page and it is gone. I know that we all pay good money for our mags but you could also resale them, too. Our LQS has a garage sale once a year where we can unload our excess items and surplus fabric.

I am TERRIBLE about magazines. I dont drink. I dont smoke. I keep the lights out in all the rms I dont use and keep the heat down to 64 degrees all winter! BUT, I buy nearly all quilt mags I come across! I finally bought this hand held scanning wand on a shopping channel - the best 99$ Ive spent ever! James has two terrabyte external drives, I wand everything, keep it in its own folder, store it on the drive and can get rid of every pc of paper in the house. Since I have nearly 10 thousand hardcover books Im scanning them too! sharet

I had to downsize my quilt magazines too. After a month, I would pull out patterns and ideas that I think I may want to try someday. These I put in sheet protectors and then put in binders. I have 6 binders.....one for applique, one for holidays, etc.

Same here...I've only renewed one this year so far.

Don't have a Nook (or a Kindle or any other e-reader, for that matter) but I suspect it is because you can't get the templates, centerfold applique patterns, etc. from your Nook so you would not be able to use a lot of the patterns from the magazine. Maybe??

I love magazines! Can't resist them. So our house was getting too full of them. I was finally able to let some of them go by giving them to a local nursing home. Haven't done that with quilting magazines yet, but I bet they could use those also. The recreation department can reuse them.

I love magazines and cookbooks. I like nothing better on a rainy Sunday afternoon than to pour myself a glass of wine and get out a stack of magazines/cookbooks and peruse them for hours. I only purchase a magazine if there are more than two items in it that interest me. I usually find that as time goes by I find more items of interest. So for me they are never a waste of time or money. They are enjoyed and used frequently.

P.S. I frequently purchase used magazines at thrift stores.

I never subscribe, but buy second-hand or through charity stores. I just weakened my "no-buying any more policy" and got about ten quilting magazine/books plus a really lovely almost new blouse for seven dollars yesterday! My saving grace is that it supports a really lovely church in our neighbourhood called "St Barnabas"...and I'm not even affiliated with them. They are just "good people".

I had a garage sale and they all went!!!!!!!

Ladies,
Here is a magazine suggestion. First get a couple of really nice notebooks. Take a look at the index of each magazine and pull out the information that you need or that quilt or project you want to make. Take the cover page, the contents and put the pages you pulled right behind those. The contents and cover page carry the issue, pages and projects that if you wanted to make those later on, you could. This method works great at the office. I put the magazine in the boss's in box he circles the articles he wants to read/keep and I take those out. Let's face it some of that info you have somewhere else already or have enough experience already.

What to do with the extra pages, just put those in your garden and mulch over the top. They will biodegrade but in the mean while keep the weeds from coming up.

There are lot s of places to donate (library) or just post some issues here and sell them.

I love magazines too but can't purchase as many as I would like.

Hoe this helps you all. You are all so kind to me.
DianneR

I have those metal/cardboard/plastic boxs that hold about 25 magazines and they are overrunning my crafting shelves...I like the idea of putting what you want in binders, but I am afraid I would want to keep too many too!

What a great idea, especially since we are half the year in an RV.
Now if I could shrink my stash and make a note to "just add water" to revive, I would be in heaven.

You could always save the articles you want and still donate the magazines. Dr. offices, hospitals, (such as the VA) most places like that love to get donated magazines. This is what I do with mine.

I also love the magazines. Sometimes I buy one and look thru and decide I don't like any of their examples and then maybe a month or so later, I love them ! Love cookbooks too, but I have cut down on them. Don't worry about it though, there is always someone worse. And I've seen the tv show and It's not Hoarding ! Right????????

I too had too many magazines and the quilting magazines began to all look alike. Anyway, what I did was get those magazine holders like you can buy at Wal-Mart and I went through the magazines and then put the latest ones of one kind in one of the holders, as many as it would hold. When I got another one of those magazines I would go through the oldest and pitch it or give it away and then put the newest one in the holder. It seemed to work for me.

Isn't the show Hording scary! My DH and I are both "collectors" and tape the show regularly to watch together. We usually clean a box out or pick up right after and for a few days. It puts everything into perspective for us.
That is one of the stacked magazines, fabric, baskets, books issues. don't want to get that bad.

When I get a few piled up I take them to the local senior center. I've been told there are a lot of ladies who go there and just love to have something to look at and I'm sure they get ideas and copy some of the patterns.

judjo

I get about 6, I think. I read, rip out and file instructions for quilts that I think I'll make (if I live to be 200) and pass the magazines on to other quilters.
I have about 12 3-hole punch books: scrap quilts, jelly-rolls, family and friends, baby, holiday, placemats and runners, batiks etc.

Had the same problem. Decided I would NEVER make all those quilts. The mags were just so much eye candy. Went thru my copies and copied savers on my printer-copier and donated the rest to the Senior Citizen group after My ASG group went thru them.

My gardening mags are all recirculated at Master Gardener meetings. Don't subscribe anymore cause it's too costly and I couldn't do all that stuff if I lived to 183.

My gardening books

I save mine for a year and then copy all the patterns, articles I want and put them into 3 ring binders. Then I give away the none damaged mags to our local Linus Quilting group of ladies. They enjoy them and they get lots more use. I am cutting back on subscriptions as they are getting too costly and I don't find lots of patterns I like.

I started out with the cardboard magazine holders, but now I have too many. I thought about cutting out the patterns I like and throwing away the rest of the magazine, but I like ALL of the patterns in ALL of the magazines! What is a quilter to do?!

I cleaned out my Threads subscription back up because a new sewer put an ad on craigs list. She was a new sewer and a student. We met at my convenience at a local store.
It was a win win for both of us.

Hello

I am not going to tell you about the boxes of magazines in my sun room! The box is labeled with the issued name and date. I then have each magazine issue in a database which has the name, date and table of contents so that if I am looking for a particular plan, all I have to do is do the search, once I have found the project that I am looking for, I simply go find the box which has that particular magazine and I am all set and ready to go! I only keep the magazines which have projects that I know I will make!

TreeFrog

My local library has a magazine exchange for magazines 6 months or newer....put in what you don't want/take what you like. I know they don't adhere strictly to the rule as I found some five or six-year-old quilting magazines there. So, I'll make a copy of a pattern I like and then take my quilting magazines to that exchange.

Find a nearby quilt guild and donate the magazines to their library. What our guild can't use, we put up for sale in the boutique area of our semi-annual quilt show.