Thoughts on Mollie Makes

Photo from Mollie Makes

I passed a happy hour looking through Mollie Makes yesterday evening - it's a new craft magazine that seems to have flown from the shelves of just about everywhere. It has a nice matt cover, a proper bound spine and feels just how you want a magazine to feel: a very long way from shiny, stapled pages. These are the things that shouldn't matter, but somehow do.

It's a lifestyle magazine with craft skew poked firmly through it. The articles and interviews focus on the process of craft and the evidence of it having infiltrated its way into the crafter's heart, home and thoughts, rather than teaching you how, which is just what I'm interested in reading about. Oh and there's some shopping bits too...which are always welcome. Who wouldn't love a magazine that alerted your attention to the existence of this floaty Anthropologie apron? (well, perhaps I loved it less when I realised that the apron was no longer for sale, but sometimes just feasting your eyes on something will suffice. I've already imagined the baking sessions and dinner parties I've lived through wearing that apron and I think in reality I'm not sure I could cope with its fabulousness).

Eyes Left: Apron love

I also love it when magazines hold secrets and nonchalantly dispense them in small and insignificant side columns as though they didn't really deserve a double page spread. Which is exactly what they achieved in their 'where to buy retro fabric' aside... amongst the others listed there you might want to go visiting Spinsters Emporium.

Overall, my impression of it was that it was rather wonderful and cringe-factor moments (which seem to feature frequently in craft magazines) were low. I hope they retain their very welcome small sewing pattern to editorial ratio, as so often if you don't want to make the item in question it can feel like a huge number of pages have been lost. My only complaint is that, as I said at the top of this post, I spent a happy hour looking through the magazine, which for £4.99 doesn't seem very long. However, if you add to that the subsequent time getting lost in Anthropolgie apron fantasies and further time looking up some of the online links shared within the pages, then perhaps it does represent jolly good value for money.

Florence x