Monday 4 February 2013

Mollie Makes Magazine Review



In the past, I have avoided craft magazines. They tend to be quite expensive, and I've always thought, why buy a magazine with not much in it when for just twice that cost I could get a brilliant craft book packed full of stuff? At the moment there is a fairly long list of books I want, so I'd much rather wait and save to get some of those than spend £5/6ish on a magazine.

That said, the other day I DID purchase Mollie Makes. It was an impulse buy - I saw the cute felt foxes and racoons on the front, flicked through and saw DIY shoe clips and granny square blankets, all things I want to have a go at, and was sold.




As well as the makes mentioned, the magazine also comes with a small kit each month. This issue included a kit for a fabric wallet. 


The idea of the kit was to make up a travel card style wallet, with two plastic pockets. It came with printed and plain fabric, plastic pockets and ribbon to edge them with, and card inserts to make it more sturdy. 

Pros:
* The instructions were fairly simple to follow.
* I completed the wallet in less than 30 minutes, so a pretty easy and fast make.

Cons:
* The kit is not very generous - there is little room for error, as the pieces of fabric provided were only slightly larger, and the ribbon was the exact amount needed. This meant that, when i was just a couple of millimetres out on measuring the ribbon, it was left short for another piece.
* The instructions state machine sew, although my machine really didn't seem to like sewing over the pieces of plastic. I'm not sure if this is just my machine though. In the end, I resorted to gluing the pockets on!

This is what I ended up with, which doesn't look half so good as the one featured in the magazine!


Excuse the creased fabric :/
                                             

 While I still think I'm justified in thinking that craft magazines are expensive for what you get, (after all, I could have found tutorials for all those things I was interested in online for free if I'd looked, and the kit isn't really worth buying the magazine for by itself), it was a nice surprise in that this one was full of interesting articles and interviews as well as the makes featured. There was also plenty of inspiration to be got from the products, makers and shops featured in their monthly craft picks.

All in all, while I won't be buying this every month, I would pick it up again should something especially interesting catch my eye on the cover, as it did this time. I'd give it a 3/5.

I'll have a go at the 'forest felties' soon and post those too.

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