Pom Pom Magazine to Cease Publication

The makers of Pom Pom magazine, known for its lovely production values and stylish but accessible patterns, have announced they will cease publication. The upcoming January edition, number 48, will be the last.

A letter from the founders posted on their website and on Instagram said the magazine was launched by the founders in 2012 with a £600 investment and has grown to include offices in the UK and the US and is stocked in more than 700 shops around the world.

They said in their statement:

Pom Pom was founded during a renaissance of printed magazines, when many believed print was dead. We knew that makers are tactile people, and our readership appreciated the beautiful paper and lithographic printing that has always been a hallmark of our publications. We have always sold more in print than digitally. The world has changed unimaginably since our foundation. The cost of paper and printing has more than doubled in recent years, as has the cost of shipping. Though we tried many, many ways of continuing to make Pom Pom work as a print publishing company, we cannot continue without compromising the values on which we were founded. It has been an incredibly difficult struggle but we can safely say we gave it our all.

The upcoming issue, they say, is “among the best issues we’ve ever produced” and the company is still incurring a lot of costs to be able to produce it. They ask for help from those for whom “Pom Pom has been a meaningful part of your crafting life over the past twelve years” to buy back issues and books to help offset the costs of production of the last issue and allow them to pay their staff and freelancers.

You can visit their online store here, were almost everything is 50 percent off. You can check out back issues on Ravelry if you want to find the designs you’re most likely to make more easily.

It’s a shame that the production values that have made it such an asset to knitters and crocheters are also what makes it impossible to continue as they have, and we wish all involved the best in their future projects.

[Photo: Pom Pom]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?