The last Craft magazine

So goodbye then, Craft magazine, I shall miss you plopping onto my doormat every quarter. True you’ll continue through articles in the associate magazine Made, but Made always seems to focus on the mechanical, time-consuming and ‘need a bit of know-how’ projects.  Your great website Craftzine will continue, but it’s not the same as having a good old flick and dog-earing the pages of an interesting article while you’re in the bath (something about laptops and water …)

I’m not quite sure why we can’t do a good old modern craft magazine in this country - they’re either of the Woman’s Own knitting variety or bordering on the high-brow like the Craft Council’s Crafts magazine (which, incidentally, is very good but does articles about the high-end crafts exhibition community rather than making you feel a part of an exciting at-home movement which is doing it for themselves).  I’ve always felt there’s still a snobbery about craft in this country which hasn’t caught up with the current wave - it’s perceived either as strange warty women smelling of cat wee and crocheting tasteless tat, or cutting edge new-wave Hoxton dwellers incorporating a bit of ironic craft into their highly priced art pieces.

Anyway, I digress as ever.  My point was originally going to be something about web vs. print - I remember when I first started out as a web designer and my graphic design friends were so snotty about it as the virtual web couldn’t convey the sensory experience, the texture, colour and depth (or even smell) of an actual piece.  I felt dashed about it at the time and thought they were being snobs, but I find myself agreeing now … although all things webwise have levelled out and it certainly holds an important place in our lives, you can’t do without a good old piece of print.  Your world can’t exist in a 1024 x 768 pixel format, nothing beats the joy of discovering an old craft book in a second-hand shop and smelling that damp paper smell and gloating over the vintage fonts and adverts, or discovering a well crafted, well thought-out publication.

So it’s sad, you’ll be missed here at least, but at least you went out on a bang - Amy Sedaris’ piece was hysterical.  Oh well, still got Selvedge to look forward to.