Learn to Read and Adjust Patterns for Home Sewers


Book Description

This book is for anyone who wants to learn to read, make adjustments, and understand preprinted paper patterns available from retail stores and online stores for garments, home décor, and sewing crafts for the home sewer. The process of reading and understanding a home sewing pattern can be frustrating and confusing without some guidance and tips. This book will steer you on the correct path to understanding. Through reading and applying the lessons you learn from this book you will be able to read the sizing charts on the back of the pattern envelope, and understand fabric and notions needed to create the end product. You will also learn to understand the sewing skill level the pattern was created for, as well as grading lines, cutting symbols, and adjusting symbols. In this volume you will also find instructions and hints to adjust the paper pattern to better fit your shape requirements. All preprinted patterns are designed using standard sizes to fit persons of average shape in their respective sizes. Since not everyone is built the same, you may have a special need in a specific part of your body that would require an adjustment to the preprinted pattern to make the garment fit and look better when completed. Standard body measurement charts for Misses, Women, Men, Juniors, Girls, Boys, Children, Toddlers, and Infants are included in this volume with measurements noted in inches and centimeters.




Fitting Finesse


Book Description

Fitting Finesse is my painless approach to fitting--both for you and your pattern!




New Complete Guide to Sewing


Book Description

Provides general instructions for fitting, constructing, tailoring, and finishing women's, men's, and children's clothing and for making curtains and bedcoverings.




Craft: Volume 01


Book Description

CRAFT is the first project-based magazine dedicated to the renaissance that is occurring within the world of crafts. Celebrating the DIY spirit, CRAFT's goal is to unite, inspire, inform and entertain a growing community of highly imaginative people who are transforming traditional art and crafts with unconventional, unexpected and even renegade techniques, materials and tools; resourceful spirits who undertake amazing crafting projects in their homes and communities. Volume 01, the premier issue, features 23 projects with a twist! Make a programmable LED shirt, turn dud shoes into great knitted boots, felt an iPod cocoon, embroider a skateboard, and much more.




Love at First Stitch


Book Description

Love at First Stitch gives you all the know-how you need to start making the dresses of your dreams. Written for novice stitchers, Tilly Walnes demystifies dressmaking for the generations that have never been taught to sew. This book presents the core sewing basics in an informal style, with Tilly's friendly and encouraging voice cheering the reader on throughout.




Pattern Fitting With Confidence


Book Description

Nancy Zieman's pattern fitting approach is easy - no cutting, slashing, tucking or pinching—just logical and easy pivot-and-slide techniques, providing a painless method to follow that results in a garment that is comfortable and attractive. Once you learn Nancy's techniques for fitting, you will find it easy to make every garment you sew fit your size and shape. Multiple fitting charts are included in the book, as well as an index for locating technical information at a glance.




Understanding and Adjusting Sewing Patterns


Book Description

Everyone feels good and looks better in well-fitted clothes. This practical book explains how to make garments that really fit you and flatter your shape. It is a step-by-step guide to understanding fully what is included on a sewing pattern envelope and the contents within, so that you can make the clothes you want look amazing. Aimed at those home sewers who have no confidence in fitting, this book will be your best friend and will guide you through the process of sewing successful clothes with a professional fit and finish. Provides clear instructions on taking key body measurements, and tips for seeing and understanding what your body shape actually is, explains how to fit on a dressform and how to adjust a dressform so that it resembles your personal size and shape. It encourages you to be confident and creative, and to take the next step with your dressmaking. Of great interest to all home sewers, dressmakers, tailors, costume makers and fashion students. Superbly illustrated with 145 colour images. Gill McBride is an experienced seamstress who runs her own sewing school - Sewing with Gill.




Sew Your Own Activewear


Book Description

A sewing expert and marathon runner offers sewing patterns and blocks, as well as step-by-step instructions to help you create your own amazing activewear. Make your own unique activewear sewing wardrobe that’s perfect for your workout. Choose from thirteen different styles including yoga pants, crops top and running leggings designed by activewear sewing expert, and marathon runner, Melissa Fehr. Whether you’re a runner, a cyclist or a gym bunny, or you’re simply looking for the perfect pair of slouchy leggings for elegant lounging, this collection of sewing patterns is for you. Learn all about how to choose the correct fabric for activewear sewing and discover expert tips on working with performance fabrics like Lycra and spandex. Before you know it, you’ll have a truly unique workout wardrobe to wear while you work up a sweat!




Design-It-Yourself Clothes


Book Description

If you’ve ever watched Project Runway and wished you were a contestant, or you’re simply ready to take your sewing to a new level, Design-It-Yourself Clothes teaches you the fundamentals of modern patternmaking so that you, too, can create your own inspired clothing. Until now, the aspiring DIY fashionista has been hard-pressed to find self-teaching tools other than dry textbooks or books with outdated looks. Finally, in Design-It-Yourself Clothes, former Urban Outfitters designer Cal Patch brings her youthful aesthetic to a how-to book. If you want to wear something you can’t find on store racks and make clothes that express your individual style, or if you’ve reached a sewing plateau and want to add pattern drafting to your repertoire, Design-It-Yourself Clothes is the book you have been waiting for. In five key projects (each with four variations)–a perfect-fitting dress, T-shirt, button-down shirt, A-line skirt, and pants–Patch shares the art of patternmaking. At its core, it’s much simpler than you think. Patch covers everything an intermediate sewer needs to know in order to become a fabulous fashion designer, from designing the patterns, taking your own measurements, and choosing fabrics to actually sewing the clothing. You will also learn how to stylize patterns by using darts, waistbands, patch pockets, and ruffles. Patch offers tips, explanations, options, and exercises throughout that will make the design process that much easier. But besides showing you how to create clothing from scratch, she also teaches you how to rub off patterns from existing clothing–so if you have a pair of pants that you love but are worn out, or you have your eye on a piece in the store with a prohibitive price tag, you can figure out how to get the looks you want by using your own two hands.




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"