Craft Magazine Shop Ltd ceased trading

A quick update for those of you who were wondering what had happened to Craft Magazine Shop Ltd, or who may have a subscription to Simply Sewing (formerly Sew Hip) or Modern Quilting Magazine.

If you are a subscriber you will be aware that no issues have been produced for quite some time and rumours have been circulating since the end of last year that the company had gone under yet again.   Their web shop has been empty for a couple of months and no one was answer the phone or replying to e-mails. Well this was confirmed yesterday in an e-mail sent to Modern Quilting subcribers from Richard Rycroft (Kerrie Allman's father who had put the latest incarnation in his name).

The e-mail said:

Dear Subscriber
Modern Quilting Magazine
It is with regret I have to inform you that on 10th December 2012 Craft Magazines Ltd ceased trading as we had insufficient funds to pay our bills or to carry on trading.
We wrote to all our trade creditors giving them 30 days to accept the situation or to petition the courts to force us into liquidation at their own cost, which has not happened.
We have during this period been actively trying to get another publisher to take over the magazine, but as yet no one as been prepared to do this, although we will continue to try and find someone.
If anyone would be interested in taking over Modern Quilting Magazine or wishes to contact me please do so at the above address, as we have ceased trading this email address is not monitored on a regular basis.
Kind Regards
Richard Rycroft
Director
Craft Magazines Ltd
Simply Sewing, Modern Quilting, Simply Beautiful

Why it took them almost 2 months to have the decency to inform their subscribers that once again they would not be getting the magazines they paid for I do not know.   This is now 3 companies which have gone under in under 2 years, owing a rather substantial sum of money.

So is this finally the end? 

Unfortunetly it doesn't look like it.  Just last week details of 2 books published by Igloo books emerged, books which featured images from the All Craft Media/Kal Media magazines, many of which were not paid for so therefore the magazine did not own the copyright.  The designers had no idea their images had been sold onto Igloo books and they received no money or credit. The images were credit to Handmade Living Magazines, which never originally published most of the images, if any of them. 

Jenna at Sew Happy Geek is getting a copy of the sewing book to see if she can recognise any of the images from Modern Quilting or Simply Sewing to try and contact the designers and let them know.

Also Kerrie and clan now have at least 2 new ventures up and running.  A sales and marketing company (oh the irony) called 5iftyfournine and a supposedly monthly local lifestyle magazine called Truffle - which appeared in digital form end of November and then nothing else seemed to happen.  Noone ever spotted any print copies in the Essex area where they were allegedly distributed and the Jan issue never appeared. 

I'm not too sure what recourse any subscribers currently have as administrators or liquidators have not been appointed and the company are not reply to any correspondence or phone calls.   If administrators or liquidators are appointed I'll add their details to the bottom of this post once I have them.

More details can be found on this Ravelry group, it's free to sign up and there is a huge amount of info on there.