1,000 Clever Sewing Shortcuts & Tips


Book Description

Get invaluable advice from sewers like you with this handy reference. This practical reference guide features the best hands-on sewing tips culled from the popular sewing website PatternReview.com, a community of more than 200,000 members. You’ll also find special how-to features by PatternReview.com’s master teachers and pattern designers, including Kenneth D. King, Susan Khalje, Sarah Veblen, Shannon Gifford, and Anna Mazur. Best of all, these words of wisdom—more than 1,000 tips in all—will provide you with new solutions to the trickiest problems and show you how to save time, money, and materials. Praise for 1,000 Clever Sewing Shortcuts & Tips “A must-have book for every sewer’s library. Whether you’re a burgeoning beginner or a seasoned seamstress, this book will teach you more than a few new tricks. Honestly, I couldn’t put it down! It’s packed full of creative tips and great ideas, shared as always, sewer to sewer!” —Margo Martin, Executive Director, American Sewing Guild, Inc. “The only thing better than a good tip is more good tips, no? It’s all very well to get an expert’s tips, but what’s really needed when tip gathering is a hive-mind’s best discoveries, and there’s no busier, buzzier sewing hive than Deepika’s PatternReview, so you KNOW they’re in here, those tips you haven’t head, haven’t yet tried, haven’t yet imagined. Welcome to the Hive!” —David Coffin, former editor of Threads magazine and author of Making Trousers for Men and Women




The Tunic Bible


Book Description

The only tunic pattern you'll ever need! Sew the perfect tunic to express your style—from simple and modest to daring and chic! Mix and match collars, neck plackets, and sleeves for an endless variety of professional, store-quality results. Stitch up a sharp bodice pattern, designed to fit sizes XS to XXL, in assorted lengths, styles, and trims. Well respected in the sewing industry for their pattern reviews and online garment challenges, Sarah Gunn and Julie Starr make the tunic accessible and exciting for those with basic sewing skills and beyond. • Create chic, ready-to-wear tunics with a multi-length, graded pattern and expert construction tips • Choose your style—casual, preppy, boho, or glamorous—with interchangeable sleeves, neck plackets, and collars • Get advice on shopping for fabric and trims, guided by a huge gallery of inspiring tunic tops




A Stylish Guide to Classic Sewing


Book Description

The authors of The Tunic Bible craft a “clever guide to the DIY creation of tried and true staples of a woman’s wardrobe . . . truly inspiring” (Publishers Weekly). Discover the secrets to sewing a stylish wardrobe with staying power! This spirited guide walks you through thirty timeless garments to make for yourself, including a must-have button-up shirt, tailored trousers, a flattering A-line dress, and the indispensable modern classic pencil skirt. With a conversational narrative, the authors have created an engaging, informative guide to sewing by tracing the origins of each garment, along with styling and sewing tips, charming fashion illustrations, and a modeled photo gallery. Pencil skirt pattern and instructions included! “This delightfully illustrated book featuring a conversational narrative chronicles 30 beloved classic silhouettes that lie at the core of women’s wardrobes . . . Each garment chapter laced with fascinating facts and trivia tidbits gives new meaning to why we wear what we wear . . . [a] keen guide to creating a fresh collection of timeless garments.” —Elysian “It should be inspirational to those just beginning to sew for themselves as well as those who just aspire to it! . . . With this book in hand, you will both sew and dress with confidence and style.” —Fifty Dresses “This book is so well-written and the illustrations are amazing.” —Girls in the Garden




The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting


Book Description

The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting is the ultimate reference for fitting test garments and transferring accurate adjustments to patterns. No matter what size or shape you are, wearing garments that fit perfectly makes you look and feel better. Rather than making commonly accepted changes to a commercial pattern, the method presented in this guide focuses on the way a test garment fits the body. The fabric is manipulated to improve the fit, and then those specific changes are made to the pattern. The result: patterns that fit perfectly! With The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting, you'll learn: The importance of a fitting axis and how to use it during a fitting How to recognize fitting issues, such as drag lines and folds How to manipulate fabric to solve common and unusual fitting problems How to transfer the fitting changes to your pattern easily Basic pattern-making skills to ensure accurate alterations See the fitting process from start to finish on basic garments, fitted on real people. Then follow fitting solutions on different body types. Hundreds of large color photos illustrate the techniques and concepts in simple step-by-step instructions. With these lessons, you will get the perfect fit for any body.




The Secret Lives of Dresses


Book Description

When her grandmother has a stroke, Dora returns to the small town where she grew up to take over her family's vintage clothing store -- and meets a handsome contractor. Is he interested in Dora? Or is he working from a different blueprint? Dora has always taken the path of least resistance. She went to the college that offered her a scholarship, majoring in "vagueness studies," and wears whatever shows the least dirt. She falls into a job at the college coffee shop and has a crush on her flirty boss, Gary. But just when she's about to test Gary's feelings, Mimi, the grandmother who raised her, suffers a stroke. Dora rushes back to Forsyth, NC, and finds herself running her grandmother's vintage clothing store while her grandmother recovers -- andmeets Mimi's adorable contractor, Conrad. The store has always been a fixture in Dora's life; though she grew up more of a jeans-and-sweatshirt kind of girl, before she even knew how to write, Mimi taught her that a vintage 1920s dress could lift a woman's spirit. But why has Mimi started writing down -- and giving away -- stories of the dresses in her shop? Amidst personal and professional turmoil, can Dora can trade her boring clothes for vintage glamour and her boring life for one she actually wants?




Sewing Shortcuts


Book Description

"New ways to make better use of decorative [machine] stitches, to perfect clothing construction, to use presser feet and the serger, and to inspire the decorator in you."--Jacket.




Me and My Sewing Machine


Book Description

This jargon-free, fully illustrated guide to using your sewing machine explains essential techniques and offers easy projects for getting started. Straightforward and accessible, Me and My Sewing Machine contains everything you need to know to get the most out of your sewing machine. There are no intimidating specialty techniques, painstaking procedures, or complicated methods. Instead you will find easy-to-understand, practical and decorative techniques that make sewing simple, even if you have never used a machine before. Author and professional crafter Kate Haxell shares clever tips and shortcuts, as well as advice on when you can use these speedy methods and when it really is better to do something the traditional way. Everything is illustrated with step-by-step photography and finished samples. Haxell also includes easy sewing projects that are simple without skimping on style.




Quilt As-You-Go Made Modern


Book Description

Learn to create modern quilts more quickly and easily than ever with this popular method, featuring thirteen projects and twenty-five bonus ideas. Do you believe rules were meant to be broken? If so, this improvisational quilt-as-you-go technique is for you. Instead of dealing with precise paper patterns and cutting measurements, you’ll learn how to piece fabric onto small, manageable batting blocks. Let your creative juices flow as you quilt directly on the blocks (not the whole quilt!), whether in large abstract zigzags or small structured stitches. After the blocks have been joined, all you need to do is add backing fabric and binding, and—voila—it’s finished! A modern approach to quilting that’s fresh, fun, and simpler than it sounds; it will change the way you quilt (for the better) Great for moms or anyone with a busy schedule—these thirteen projects are easy to transport because they make it simple to pick up where you left off Go your own way: This method allows you to use a pattern or improvise, creating a wide variety of design options Save money! Learn how to finish your own quilts without the use of a longarm professional “Quilting is easier than ever with Jera Brandvig’s modern spin on the popular quilt-as-you-go technique.” —Modern Quilts Unlimited “Quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) is one of those techniques that every quilter is curious about trying, but can be daunting as the process is so different to the traditional process of making a quilt top and then quilting it. . . . The book introduces the technique very thoroughly, so you can clearly understand the difference between traditional piecing and quilting and QAYG. Then there’s a great selection of gorgeous quilts that are sure to appeal to the modern quilter. A must if you’ve ever thought about trying QAYG and haven’t had a clue where to start.” —Make Modern Magazine




The Lost Art of Dress


Book Description

"A tribute to a time when style -- and maybe even life -- felt more straightforward, and however arbitrary, there were definitive answers." -- Sadie Stein, Paris Review As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and beautifully. In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals that this wasn't always true. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.




The Best of Sewing with Nancy


Book Description

Dressmaking, Machine Sewing, Tailoring.