April 2012 archive

Handmade Fashion

 

Em and Rob have worked long and hard on this new launch. Most of the production was done over the period when we were without an office and internet, a whole company full of people working from home, in business centres and in an office without any connectivity. To say it was a hard time for us is an understatement, it was the worst time for us.

However, Em’s vision for this magazine was relentless and Rob’s design skills and understanding of what Em wanted to achieve matched that. The finished magazine is nothing short of amazing, its almost 200 pages full of the best in handmade fashion for Spring Summer 2012. It doesn’t look like one of our craft magazines. It is special.

We had a brilliant launch party for the magazine last night, over 50 people turned up and jived and watched the fashion show and generally drank cocktails and relaxed. We sold lots of magazines and had a really good time, despite the fact that I absolutely wasn’t in the mood to have fun.

This weekend is all about a bit of handmade fashion, sewing and knitting and baking are the order of the weekend. With a little bit of housework thrown in for good measure I suppose.

Posted in Magazines | Comments Off on Handmade Fashion

This weekend

This weekend, for once, I decided to do no work at all. Not even to look at my emails (which is so unlike me I can hear all my staff and family laughing at the thought of me not doing so)

The plan was to spend some proper time with the kids, we had swimming lessons, birthday parties, family to visit, the weather was supposed to be beautiful.

In fact, we ended up with a house full of sick people. Last night there were 2 poorly children on our bedroom floor and today I’m taking a day off work to look after 3 sickys and myself. Wish me luck, there will be lots of cartoons and napping and hopefully they’ll stagger the sickness so that we’re not ALL fighting for the bathoom at the same time.

Open day in the ACM office.

L to right Lilly (IC reader) Katie (work experience on MQ) Helen (MQ reader) Vick (MQ editor) Ali (IC reader) Mandy (SH reader) Vanessa (K reader) Beth Butcher (all of the mags reader!!) Em (publisher) Camilla (Knit and IC reader) Naomi (KNIT editor) Lesley (KNIT tech editor) Laura (KNIT and new launch editor) Adrian (IC staff) Nicky Trench and her friend had already left before the group photo!

Today was our first open day in the All Craft Media office, it was fantastic. A lot of hard work but worth every minute of it.

We had 10 people in the office for a few hours, this is what we got up to :

11am - everyone picked up from station or met as they drove in. Cake and tea and coffee in the meeting room followed by introduction from Kerrie.

11.20 ish - editors come in to meet everyone, bringing lots of samples with them for the next few issues. Open discussion around the magazines, the samples and plans. Editors also bring flatplans for the next few issues and explain the process of making the magazines. Question and asnswers from both sides.

1pm - lunch, knitting, spinning, crochet etc

2pm - leave meeting room and wander through to the main office to meet the rest of the company. See the art team working on the layout of the pages, meet Mandy who everyone in the world seems to know already and then round to the photography studio section.

2 - 2.45pm - photo shoot. Ross our photographer has a whole crowd of people following him around and watching him

More tea and cake and then home.

We’ll definitely be holding these days more often, it was great to get so many readers in one room - if you’re interested in coming along to the next one just let us know by emailing [email protected]

Crochet, away!

I have been practising my crochet more and more these last few weeks, I think I’ve got the bug. Today I decided that I wanted to learn how to crochet hexagons so off I went to Lucy’s blog over at Attic24 and used her Hexagon How to Tutorial.

I’m really pleased with the way they came out, I’ve made 4 out of scraps of yarn and plan to carry on and make some more from some of dad’s silk I think, nice and drapey.