Technology and Quilt Magazines: How Far We've Come

WARNING: This is word heavy! But, there are a lot of pics, too.

As many of you know, I was an editor with Quilt Magazine for 14 years and enjoyed seeing hundreds of my quilts and close to 1,000 articles on "how to make . . ." published in those years. My editor, Jean Ann Wright, was the editor for 20 years and we both "got the boot" in 2007 with the publisher's quest to try (in vain) to become relevant in a fast paced technology/internet fickle world.

Harris Publications published Quilt Magazine and several other quilting titles for 25 years. They also had a few dozen hobby magazines. At one point, we were churning out 17 quilt magazines A YEAR! That's one every 3 weeks! I was like a hamster on a wheel, but the more I published the more I got a check. And the beauty of working with Stanley Harris was that he was NOT stingy. I even got a $250 bonus for every single magazine cover I had (and I had 24 covers in those 14 years). Yes, I learned to sew for the camera. They paid well, on time, and it put my oldest 2 daughters through college.

Here are a few of the magazine covers I graced:

My Carpenter's Wheel on the cover of Big Block Quilts

My Tasty Leftovers on the cover of Small Quilts

My Hearts on Fire and Asian Kamon on the cover of Quilt Almanac

My Girl Friends Quilt using RJR fabrics in Quilt Magazine

Now, why am I writing this blog post? I got a very interesting email from Jean Ann the other day when I discovered that there was NO MORE www.quiltmag.com online. Zero. Zip. Nada. The magazine/publisher closed the doors last August and 75 full time support staff got the boot. But the web site was still online until recently.

That web site was secret for the first two years in 1995-1997. Jean Ann and I decided that it was IMPORTANT to have a quilting presence online and we put up the first quilt magazine site! She billed Stanley Harris for 2 years under a different line item before he decided he wanted a web site! We knew it was important and I was the web master for those 2 years. We enjoyed a decade of awesome activity after that.

Then, as you are aware, magazines (and a lot of print media) would come to a crashing halt because advertisers would take their business to the internet and not the expensive printed page.

Back to my story. Quiltmag.com is gone. And here is what Jean Ann said to me that I found fascinating. Technology is both our friend and a potential enemy. Depends on what side of the aisle you are on.

"The internet is definitely devastating the magazine industry in America. The truth is, more jobs are lost to technology than to moving them overseas. Just think that when I first became editor I printed out all of the text, sent it to NY via FEDEX and they sent it out to typesetting shops that were located all over lower New York City. Hundreds of people did the old fashioned typesetting for magazines, books and newspaper. Also the messengers that took copy and text back and forth between typesetting shops and publishing companies were out of work. 

When text came back, art directors laid it out and pasted it up on big boards, those big boards were sent to printers via FEDEX.

Now everything is laid out on a computer, text, art the works. And don't forget the color photographs. To have color they used to do a process of separation with 4 glass plates required for each color photograph. These were sent to printers. Now this is done on a computer. FEDEX also loses out because everything is sent via email. I used to send a FEDEX to NY almost every day. That ended with the internet.

So while people are complaining jobs are going overseas, the truth is, most jobs are being lost to technology. But we complain about jobs going overseas because we don't dare point out it is both the internet and jobs going overseas. 

It is the technology revolution taking over in our time just like the manufacturing ended so much cottage industry 200 years ago. We won't be around to see what replaces the technology revolution."

So, what do you think? In some ways, I am very glad I was let go from the magazine staff in 2007 instead of 2017. I had to "reinvent" myself. I'm very good at technology. I mean, I used to build web sites using RAW html code!

Here are a few of my favorite quilts published in Quilt over the years. Jean Ann was very good to me. She published just about everything I made once I learned to sew for the camera (good contrast). Stanley Harris paid me well and all this began by me answering an AOL bulletin board ad back in 1993 asking for someone to sew quilt tops for publication. Big WOW!

I developed a technique I labeled Cookie Cutter Applique in early 2003. Here are a few of those designs:

Cookie Cutter Trees in a holiday issue of Quilt Magazine

Bread Quilt using my Cookie Cutter appliques

Cookie Cutter Butterflies

Cloissone Diamonds, also included in my book: Supersize 'Em Quilts

Hexagon Bullseye

I have hundreds of photos and of course, lessons and patterns from those days. The beauty of working with Harris Publications was that they were never interested in buying all my rights. They just paid me for "first North American publishing rights" and after that, the copyright belongs to me. That was an incredible gift they gave me as I went to other publishers who tried to sign me for "all rights" for a pittance. And NO ONE ever offered me a bonus for having my quilt on the cover. Fons and Porter offered me 2 copies of the magazine, though (ha ha). McCall's did the same thing. I was the FIRST book author with both American Quilter's Society (2004)and Martingale (2007) who even asked for digital rights once the book went out of print. No one had ever asked for that. I had to write that into the contracts. It was a mystery to them. I own ALL RIGHTS TO EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE EVER PUBLISHED. Whew!

Back to technology and quilting. Those of us over 50 still have a love for a printed magazine. But, those days are fast coming to a close. We can pull up Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook, etc and look at beautiful quilts. And get free patterns. And never leave our home. Why bother with a magazine (even though they're very cheap).

OK. If I haven't lost you here, I hope you found what Jean Ann wrote fascinating. The world changes whether we want it to or not. I'm old and not interested in reinventing myself anymore. I like what I do and now am trying to figure out a way to protect everything I've ever created from being stolen and used after I'm go to that great quilt shop in the sky.

I think I'll show more of the quilts I've had published over the past 25 years. I think it would be fun to see the variety and maybe help me catalog things!