Life and Magazines

Well hello all!

I had a frantic past week as I spent some time furiously embroidering for a mailing deadline [ugh I want to show it off sooo bad because I'm just pleased as punch] and then I finished up the last of the advent calendars from my Etsy shop.

I ran out of the Riley Blake herringbone print that I was using for binding, so I dug into my stash for some red and white striped fabric. I love it!

Kitty is not the reason that it broke, but he is pretty damn cute.

My sewing machine broke as I was finishing up the very last calendar [what the hell, sewing juju]. At least, I haven't been able to fix it just yet...needle is locked, I can't crank it, nothing. But I actually am in Chicago for work right now [umm...25 degrees?! I don't even own a coat], so hopefully I can take a more thorough look when I get back. I did ask for a new machine for Christmas...

So because I'm typing this up from a hotel lobby I thought I'd talk about my recent project in Stitch magazine, and how it came to be. I know that I read a few posts here and there about magazine submissions when I first started sewing, and I still felt a little in the dark. So maybe this will be helpful to some.

I submitted my stockings in early June. I also submitted another project that didn't get accepted. The stockings were already made, so that was nice. They were accepted at the end of June and I had to mail the stockings and send my instructions and templates in by 4th of July. I thought I was sitting pretty since they were already made, but the editor requested that I edit the snowflakes a bit because some of the lines in the snowflake looked like crosses, so I had to angle the lines a bit. So I sewed up a new set and sent them in. You don't receive your item[s] back until a few weeks before the magazine is available, so I got everything about 2 weeks ago. You also don't receive payment until the magazine hits newsstands, although I was pleased to know that you still get paid a percentage of the offered rate even if they don't end up using your project in the end. It would be interesting to me to figure out how the magazine determines the amount they offer to pay for the project, so if anyone has any insight I'd love to hear it.

So now for my two cents...I have another project that will show up in a magazine next year. This was just a sketch and description that I submitted and it was accepted. However, in both cases I didn't get much time between when I received word that the magazine wanted my projects and when everything had to be done and mailed in. I think that it would be more worth your time to create as normal, and then submit finished projects to magazines, so you don't have to kill yourself to finish something quickly. Of course, working full-time was certainly a factor in my ability to set everything aside to work on my project. And there's no guarantee that submitting a completed item will save you from having to remake it, as in the case with the stockings. But I did feel that what I was paid would have been more worthwhile if I had created on my own time.

Of course, I don't follow my own advice, as I've just submitted only sketches again to a magazine, but maybe you all are wiser than me.