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067: Publishing for a New Generation of Knitters with Pom Pom

Dec 5, 2017

This week, Felicia talks with Meghan Fernandes and Lydia Gluck: the two co-founders and editors of Pom Pom Quarterly. If you aren’t already familiar with what Pom Pom is, it’s a beautiful, fresh, and modern quarterly magazine for knitting, crochet, and craft that was founded back in 2012. It’s a magazine that has lovely patterns, thoughtful articles, and useful tutorials.  This past summer, they celebrated their 5th anniversary of Pom Pom. In the past 5 years, they have expanded out from magazine to also designing and publishing books, hosting awesome events, and producing a monthly podcast called Pomcast.

Meghan is a former American transplant to London, where she lived for a decade. Now back in her native land, she is at the helm of Pom Pom in North America. While in London she wrote her MA dissertation on knitting in 20th century women’s literature and worked for a publisher, a gallery, and a knitting shop, leaving her with a random but particular set of skills that could really only lead to running a knitting magazine. Meghan now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and baby daughter.

Lydia was born in London, grew up in Wales, studied in Manchester, and left her heart in Mexico. Lydia has a background in linguistics, and spends a lot of time trying to draw parallels between knitting and grammar. Now she heads up the London Pom Pom office, which is pretty much her favourite job ever.

Please join us this week as Felicia and the Pom Pom ladies discuss creating a new and unique voice for fibre artists!

In this episode, we talk about:

  • 1:35 Introducing the dynamic duo behind Pom Pom and chatting about how they celebrated the magazine’s 5th anniversary
  • 4:35 Felicia asks the ladies about tips on how to survive knitwear photo shoots
  • 5:20 How Pom Pom Quarterly began
  • 7:20 Discussing what Meghan and Lydia thought was missing from other knitting magazines when they decided to start Pom Pom
  • 9:00 How Pom Pom makes it work without being funded by advertising and how the magazine is able to attract readers from a wide range of ages
  • 12:15 Felicia asks Meghan about her master’s dissertation on knitting in 20th century women’s literature and how feminism fits into Pom Pom
  • 17:10 Chatting about Knitting Outside the Box: a  new collaboration between Pom Pom Press and Bristol Ivy
  • 18:44 Felicia asks Meghan and Lydia how they manage to continue Pom Pom Magazine while living thousands of miles apart
  • 22:16 Is there a difference between knitting communities in the US and the UK?
  • 23:49 Lydia chats about her new hobby: weaving
  • 26:25 What Pom Pom has in store for the future
  • 28:00 Felicia's final notes and podcast giveaway!

Links and Things

Here's where to find Meghan and Lydia online: