I guess it is time for the first magazine review on the blog: Mollie Makes. Unfortunately for me, the lovely Martine from iMake has somewhat beaten me to it, as I have been working on the seemingly endless search to find out whether I can, indeed, take my knitting on the plane. Check out the link above for Martine’s version and read on for mine.

I have so far managed to resist the urge to buy Making magazine, mostly because I have been living in a rural backwater in North Wales and would have to actually go a long way out of my way to find somewhere that stocks it. Mollie Makes, however, managed to find its way into my shopping basket via a Facebook advert, which I hate, because I get the creepy feeling they are spying on you and change the adverts accordingly. Which, of course, they are. Anyway, after negotiating with the very unhelpful customer services person in a supermarket that will remain nameless (ASDA!) and getting nowhere on my quest to get a copy on release date, I dispatched the Mothership to go and retrieve one from one of the plethora of shops that carry it in the North West. At this point, I will say that, somewhat disappointingly, Mollie Makes are not paying me in buttons or lovely yarns to do a review. In fact, they aren’t paying me at all. What follows is merely my unafilliated-in-any-way opinion…

I was a little skeptical at first of Mollie Makes. At £4.99 an issue, it’s not the cheapest and it’s certainly not the thickest of magazines. It is pretty though and made from nice, thick, paper, which gives it a more upmarket feel and helps it to stand out amongst the other craft magazines. It is split into different sections and unlike the usual craft magazines, it also includes features on reader’s homes and how they have achieved their look. There are a few tutorials scattered amongst the pages and the issue I bought had a felt ring making kit on the cover, which, disappointingly, is not included if you go down the mail order route. I haven’t actually tried the kit yet as I have been a bit busy moving hemispheres, but it is something I will be taking a look at in future.

The thing I think I like best about this magazine is not necessarily the written content, as it isn’t the most wordy and I sometimes think that a lot of pictures are a way of disguising the fact there isn’t really much substance there. This isn’t the case with Mollie Makes: the photos in this magazine are actually very good and inspire random ideas whilst you are reading. The other big plus point for me is the ‘what’s on this month’ style section. This lists craft fairs and events throughout the month, details on which can sometimes be a little hard to come by. Mollie Makes curates them for you in one easy section. Dream.

So, will I be buying it again? Yes, when I go back to the UK. I could subscribe to it on the iPad here in SA, but I kind of object to paying almost full price for something I can’t actually hold. What can I say – i’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to my reading material! I will be checking out the blog though as that is also full of ideas and projects.