How to Make Sewing Patterns, Second Edition


Book Description

How to Make Sewing Patterns solves the mysteries of pattern drafting with easy, step-by-step instructions and clear line drawings that show how to create custom-fit garments in a wide range of designs. The book s detailed instructions on measuring and fitting include do-it-yourself photographs as well as directions for creating custom dress forms. Don McCunn has certainly mastered pattern drafting and fitting a wide range of bodies. Whether or not you have taken pattern drafting in a class, this book is a good reference in a very readable style. I especially liked the exacting instructions on taking measurements on the body and the solution for side seams which are not perpendicular to the floor. --Sandra Betzina, the power behind power sewing. Author of 10 books, a syndicated column for 37 years, and a host of her own show on HGTV for 6 years. Beyond the impressive range of material in How to Make Sewing Patterns is the author's obvious concern that readers understand what they are doing and why. There are many helpful tips throughout the book, some quite clever and unexpected. The section on drafting a sloper contains excellent explanations of the various body contours, measuring, and fitting. Text, drawings, and photos of the human body from every angle illustrate the various interrelated contours and just how a pattern accommodates them. He even gives detailed instructions on how to measure and fit yourself. --Threads Magazine McCunn's book dispels the mysteries of pattern drafting, an area which was once the province of the couturier. A do-it-yourself text in which lessons build upon one another, this book provides detailed guides to creating patterns. --Library Journal The most readable pattern drafting book I've found. The drawings are the simplest line drawings possible but executed with concise purpose. --Whole Earth Catalog Donald McCunn leads the beginning seamstress or the advanced into pattern drafting via a thorough introduction. He shows that drafting is easy if each step is clearly related to the final outcome and if the drafter visualizes what he or she is doing. --Christian Science Monitor"




Patterns for Theatrical Costumes


Book Description

An amazing resource book filled with detailed costume patterns to trace, cut out and assemble. The patterns illustrated range from Ancient Egypt to 1915 and include trims and accessories. The basic pattern shapes allow the designer's creativity free range. Gowns tunics, headdresses, jackets, robes breeches - the patterns will produce an accurate silhouette for each time period, leaving the costumer free to explore variations of cut and surface embellishment within an historic framework. Holkeboar also gives step-by-step instructions for making corsets and hoop petticoats, hats, crowns, and even masks and wigs. The patterns are multiple-sized and easy to adapt and elaborate upon so they may be used opver and over again to create a completely different look each time beause you add the all-important details. The basics are here - just add inspiration!




Sew Many Dresses, Sew Little Time


Book Description

With her "choose-your-own-adventure" approach to sewing, Tanya Whelan offers an invaluable collection of patterns that empowers sewers to become designers. The trick is a set of patterns for 6 skirts and 8 bodices that line up perfectly at the waist, plus an additional 4 sleeve styles and 4 necklines. Tanya gives readers clear instructions and easy-to-follow step-by-step diagrams that allow them to use the enclosed pattern pieces to create up to 219 fitted dresses, including simple strapless designs, sheaths, and halter gowns. The book covers basic dress construction and altering techniques for women of all shapes and sizes.




Making Stage Costumes


Book Description

Written by a well-known costume designer, this book is for anyone who would like to create costumes for the theater, whatever their experience or their budget. Topics include understanding the structure and work of a theater company; making the best use of production meetings; coping with budgets; decoding the costume clues in a script; setting up and equipping a workroom; finding costumes at thrift shops and flea markets; altering modern clothes for period productions; using and adapting commercial patterns; and developing simple sewing skills. Tina Bicât has worked as a costume designer for The Royal National Theatre, The New York City Ballet, The English National Opera, as well as for fringe theater groups, television, and film.




Pattern Cutting for Men's Costume


Book Description

Pattern Cutting for Men's Costume is a practical guide featuring patterns for the most important garments worn by men between the 16th and 19th centuries. Easy-to-follow instructions explain how to cut patterns for 'average' and individual measurements - with expert advice on how to adapt patterns to fit men of all shapes and sizes. Introductions to each section describe the major developments in men's dress - revealing how garments evolved - and patterns for period garments for which there are no actual examples are based on contemporary paintings. Illustrated throughout with hundreds of diagrams, this is a much-awaited and valuable addition to the library of costume-makers in all fields. Features a new system of drafting patterns for men's period costume. Includes patterns for the most important non-fashionable garments (worn from the 16th to the 19th centuries) plus clothes in vogue from the middle of the 16th to the end of the 18th centuries. Illustrated with hundreds of diagrams accompanied by step-by-step instructions for period garments, plus a few versatile theatrical designs.




The Costume Technician's Handbook


Book Description

Since its first publication in 1980, The Costume Technician's Handbook has established itself as an indispensable resource in classrooms and costume shops. Ingham and Covey draw on decades of hands-on experience to provide the most complete guide to developing costumes that are personally distinctive and artistically expressive. No other book covers the same breadth of necessary topics for every aspect of costuming, from the basics of setting up a costume shop to managing one and everything in between.




Pattern Cutting


Book Description

This practical guide explains how to take accurate measurements, introduces key tools and takes you from simple pattern-cutting ideas to more advanced creative methods. Step-by-step illustrations show how to create and then fit basic bodice, sleeve, skirt, dress, and trouser blocks, and how to adapt these to create patterns for original designs. New material includes advice on fitting toiles and working with stretch fabrics. There is also a fully updated chapter dedicated to digital technology. New to this edition: Access to 32 instructional videos




Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear


Book Description

Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear provides a straightforward introduction to the principles of form pattern cutting for garments to fit the body shape, and flat pattern cutting for casual garments and jersey wear. This sixth edition remains true to the original concept: it offers a range of good basic blocks, an introduction to the basic principles of pattern cutting and examples of their application into garments. Fully revised and updated to include a brand new and improved layout, up-to-date skirt and trouser blocks that reflect the changes in body sizing, along with updates to the computer-aided design section and certain blocks, illustrations and diagrams. This best-selling textbook still remains the essential purchase for students and beginners looking to understand pattern cutting and building confidence to develop their own pattern cutting style.




Cutting for All!


Book Description

Containing 2,729 entries, Kevin L. Seligman’s bibliography concentrates on books, manuals, journals, and catalogs covering a wide range of sartorial approaches over nearly five hundred years. After a historical overview, Seligman approaches his subject chronologically, listing items by century through 1799, then by decade. In this section, he deals with works on flat patterning, draping, grading, and tailoring techniques as well as on such related topics as accessories, armor, civil costumes, clerical costumes, dressmakers’ systems, fur, gloves, leather, military uniforms, and undergarments. Seligman then devotes a section to those American and English journals published for the professional tailor and dressmaker. Here, too, he includes the related areas of fur and undergarments. A section devoted to journal articles features selected articles from costume- and noncostumerelated professional journals and periodicals. The author breaks these articles down into three categories: American, English, and other. Seligman then devotes separate sections to other related areas, providing alphabetical listings of books and professional journals for costume and dance, dolls, folk and national dress, footwear, millinery, and wigmaking and hair. A section devoted to commercial pattern companies, periodicals, and catalogs is followed by an appendix covering pattern companies, publishers, and publications. In addition to full bibliographic notation, Seligman provides a library call number and library location if that information is available. The majority of the listings are annotated. Each listing is coded for identification and cross-referencing. An author index, a title index, a subject index, and a chronological index will guide readers to the material they want. Seligman’s historical review of the development of publications on the sartorial arts, professional journals, and the commercial paper pattern industry puts the bibliographical material into context. An appendix provides a cross-reference guide for research on American and English pattern companies, publishers, and publications. Given the size and scope of the bibliography, there is no other reference work even remotely like it.