Many male knitters, myself included, complain about the lack of men’s knitting patterns in most mainstream magazines. So, I decided to do a little unofficial research. I have looked through all of the knitting magazines I own to determine how often men’s patterns are published. Here are the results:
| Magazine | # issues | # issues with men’s patterns | # of men’s patterns | % of issues with men’s patterns |
| Cast On | 6 | 3 | 3 | 50% |
| Creative Knitting | 3 | 2 | 4 | 66% |
| Interweave Knits | 7 | 5 | 5 | 71% |
| Knit ‘n Style | 2 | 1 | 2 | 50% |
| Knit Simple | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Knitters | 5 | 4 | 9 | 80% |
So, what does this mean? Well, not much in the grand scheme of things, but it does mean something interesting for men who subscribe to these magazines. Based on these numbers, Knitter’s is the only magazine worth paying for a subscription for as opposed to buying it off the newsstand, unless the others subscriptions are 30-50% off the cover price. And Knit Simple just isn’t worth my money period. Mind you, I’m not saying these magazines don’t have perfectly decent patterns in them, but I can find women’s patterns, afghans, mittens, hats, baby clothes, etc. in a plethora of other places. I don’t purchase a pattern book unless there are at least three items I would knit from it, so why should I pay for a magazine subscription when there isn’t at least one pattern for me in every issue? Even if I choose not to knit a pattern, at least the option is there.
Unless things turn around quickly, I personally will be dropping my subscriptions to Creative Knitting, Knit ‘n Style, and Knit Simple. Interweave Knits is on my drop list for other reasons. I get Cast On with my TKGA membership. Rick, looks like you’re the winner of this particular contest.
