As you all know by now, I’m a little behind in my plans for the summer. So far behind that the girls started school the other day and I still haven’t finished everything I was going to do over the summer.
One of the things that I didn’t get to was sharing a review with you about the new online magazine I Like Crochet.
So, let me get to that. *I do not receive any sort of compensation if you buy this magazine, as of the time I am typing this. These are my honest opinions, and the only compensation I received for writing this was a temporary subscription to the magazine so I could read it.
I Like Crochet is a new digital magazine brought to you by Prime Publishing, the same people who bring you All Free Crochet. When I first learned of this new endeavor I was very excited because I really love All Free Crochet! Imagine how excited I was when I was asked to review the August issue.
When I get a new magazine, I like to flip through it. Even a digital one. I just enjoy starting from the beginning and flipping through the entire magazine to see what’s in there, and then going back to the things that stood out to me. So when I opened the August issue the first thing I did was look for page 1. OK that might be silly, but it’s a habit. (Please note, I was viewing the magazine from the website, I do not own a tablet and am therefore not sure how the navigation works on the tablet version, if it is different) I was a little sad that there didn’t seem to be a flip through option. So I chose an article from the table of contents and opened it. I was quite pleased to discover that at the top and the bottom of the article there were links to go to the previous article and to the next article. Being a creature of habit, I flipped back to the first page using the links, and was then able to flip through the magazine. I was very impressed by the amount and the variety of information in the magazine.
So let me talk a little about the various sections within the magazine.
Reference
I Like Crochet takes advantage of one of the major benefits of a digital magazine, and provides quite a few reference pages without having to worry about the amount of print space they are taking up. This provides a very useful tool for readers, and keeps those readers from having to leave the magazine to get answers to common questions. This is especially useful on tablets and mobile devices where that can be quite inconvenient.
Articles
There are decent number of articles in this magazine. Some are features that happen every month such as Hooked on Reading, where you will find a few crochet book reviews, and Chris’s Corner, where Chris will answer a question from a subscriber. The question in the August issue that Chris answered was “do you have any tips to speed up crochet?” Now I have been crocheting for 30 years, and a lot of what Chris had to say, I already knew. However, there were a few tips in there that I hadn’t thought of. I was pleasantly surprised. It was nice to see that the tips given were useful to somebody just learning to crochet all the way up to a more experienced crocheter.
There were also several articles that were not monthly features to the magazine. The first one that I read was Crocheting a Community. This article was about starting and running a crochet circle. I found it very informative and easy to follow. My favorite article was Too Cool for (Stitch) School: Bobble, Puff, or Popcorn? I see this question so often. “What is the difference between a bobble, a puff, and a popcorn stitch?” Now I played a little game with myself and answered the question before I read the article, just to see if I had the same answer as they did. I felt the need to do a little happy dance when I did have the same answer. They describe the difference stitches in a very understandable way, showed the symbols used in charts, and provided a lot of useful and easy to digest information.
Basically, I really like the approach I Like Crochet is taking with their articles. They are informative, they are useful for a beginner all the way through an experienced crocheter, and they are easy to read and well written.
Patterns
Oh my goodness the patterns! There is such a wonderful variety of patterns in this magazine. They use a nice assortment of brands and types of yarn, different techniques, small projects, large projects, and everything in between.
They have not skimped on the designers, either. They have some patterns that come from yarn companies, and others that come from independent designers. The talented Marie Segares has a pattern in every (or maybe just nearly every) issue through at least February. There are plenty of Amigurumi patterns from Jackie Laing for those of you looking to make some adorable little critters. You will even find patterns from the incomparable (and extremely fun!) Mary Beth Temple. You will also see designs in upcoming issues from Tamara Kelly (MOOGLY!!!) and from me as well (YAY!!).
My one complaint about the patterns is the pictures. I really wish they would have taken advantage of the digital aspect of this magazine, and in addition to providing a main image for each picture, would also provide a gallery of images to show each pattern from different angles and, when applicable, worn in different styles. I also wish you could click on the images to see them larger. Some of the images are just too small to really get a good idea of what the pattern looks like.
Overall, I was extremely pleased with I Like Crochet. I cannot wait to see what they bring in future issues, and how they will continue to improve.
Interested? Here is the subscription info.
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