The Inside Loop
Sadly, The Inside Loop magazine, a British online source of free patterns, is now to close. Mainly due to time constraints of both the editors and trying to procure good fees for designers from advertising revenue.
I am hoping another Brit mag will rear its head but perhaps not in this climate.
This pattern though, did have a good run in the mag for 18 mths and many people have made their own versions, you can see lots of them on Ravelry
Anyway, I had this one pattern you can see here, in the magazine,
Ondine: Sleeves For a Mermaid.
I am looking into releasing this pattern as a single self published pattern, so it should be available from my own pattern shop very soon.
I also saw that Knotions magazine, which is about the same age as the Inside Loop is also going to be closing. I think the problem is, really to do with trying to attract quality patterns and pay the fees that designers expect.
From a designers point of view, we have a lot of choice of where to submit and we don't really need nor can we afford to do stuff for free. I still like to do pro bono type work, and choose stuff on artistic merit, but after about 6 or more years of doing this, I am getting to the stage where I want to be paid for my time. I get offered far more work than I can actually take on, so I really don't need to do stuff for free in order to get the experience behind me. Also, so many designers are working on their own private collections and have outlets to self publish patterns. It is difficult, because I would have liked to support online mags that try so hard to offer designers fees, but that does not necessarily mean they would have wanted to choose my designs.
It seems that Knitty is surviving well, and seems to keep on going whatever the financial climate. It still has the same kudos that it always did, but I do wonder if people get quite so excited about a new issue going live now that there are places like Ravelry to satisfy our knitted pics hungry eyes. I can still remember when surfing used to throw up nothing to look at, and coming across Knitty was like finding heaven. Then, after joining an S n B, everyone knew the day it went live everyone would be rushing to be the first to make some of its garments.
Are we getting spoilt I wonder? And also, are there just too many easy sources for free patterns in other places in order for advertisers to feel confident about going in certain magazines and being guaranteed hits?
In a time of recession, who are the winners and who are the losers? I can't quite work out how this has affected me, if you take out the fact the other half is redundant, I am actually not doing too badly for work but although I am busy, I could not live on the proceeds...not with an endowment mortgage. I feel fatigued at the thought that despite paying for 16 years, my regular payments have cleared the interest onnly and there is still going to be the capital sum plus a bit more to pay when the term ends!
I am hoping another Brit mag will rear its head but perhaps not in this climate.
This pattern though, did have a good run in the mag for 18 mths and many people have made their own versions, you can see lots of them on Ravelry
Anyway, I had this one pattern you can see here, in the magazine,
Ondine: Sleeves For a Mermaid.
I am looking into releasing this pattern as a single self published pattern, so it should be available from my own pattern shop very soon.
I also saw that Knotions magazine, which is about the same age as the Inside Loop is also going to be closing. I think the problem is, really to do with trying to attract quality patterns and pay the fees that designers expect.
From a designers point of view, we have a lot of choice of where to submit and we don't really need nor can we afford to do stuff for free. I still like to do pro bono type work, and choose stuff on artistic merit, but after about 6 or more years of doing this, I am getting to the stage where I want to be paid for my time. I get offered far more work than I can actually take on, so I really don't need to do stuff for free in order to get the experience behind me. Also, so many designers are working on their own private collections and have outlets to self publish patterns. It is difficult, because I would have liked to support online mags that try so hard to offer designers fees, but that does not necessarily mean they would have wanted to choose my designs.
It seems that Knitty is surviving well, and seems to keep on going whatever the financial climate. It still has the same kudos that it always did, but I do wonder if people get quite so excited about a new issue going live now that there are places like Ravelry to satisfy our knitted pics hungry eyes. I can still remember when surfing used to throw up nothing to look at, and coming across Knitty was like finding heaven. Then, after joining an S n B, everyone knew the day it went live everyone would be rushing to be the first to make some of its garments.
Are we getting spoilt I wonder? And also, are there just too many easy sources for free patterns in other places in order for advertisers to feel confident about going in certain magazines and being guaranteed hits?
In a time of recession, who are the winners and who are the losers? I can't quite work out how this has affected me, if you take out the fact the other half is redundant, I am actually not doing too badly for work but although I am busy, I could not live on the proceeds...not with an endowment mortgage. I feel fatigued at the thought that despite paying for 16 years, my regular payments have cleared the interest onnly and there is still going to be the capital sum plus a bit more to pay when the term ends!
![Dizzy Lily <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/purchase/erssie-knits/4689"></a>](<a href="http://www.ravelry.com/purchase/erssie-knits/4689"><img border="0" src="http://www.ravelry.com/images/shopping/buy-now.gif"/></a> £2.00)
1 comment:
I was sad to hear of both Knotions and The Inside Loop, too. There are still some other online magazines out there -Popknits and Knitting On the Net seem to be surviving, still- but those two were so promising when they arrived. It must be quite difficult to get the kind of designs needed to keep a publication at the front of people's minds.
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