L---P----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----T----R----r----7--T-+--r I gave up on this file and started another bibliography at http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/RUFFTEXT/ROUGH054.HTM ROUGH54 was updated in September of 2024 (and possibly later). ----------------------------------------------------------- This is a hodge-podge of books that I've reviewed at various times, arranged more by time of reading than by topic. Annotated Bibliography Fine-sewing books: ================== _Shirtmaking_, David Coffin, 1993, Taunton Press. As complete a discussion of shirts as you'll find anywhere, and an excellent introduction to fine sewing. The author was self-taught, which brings a fresh perspective to procedures that those of us who learned from our mothers may use without thinking. Pattern-Drafting Books: ======================= This is a list of those books that turned up on a keyword search of the Upper Hudson Library Association. It not only doesn't list all the pattern-drafting books there are, it doesn't list all the pattern-drafting books in my local library federation. _How to Make Your Own Sewing Patterns_, Donald H. McCunn, 1973, Hart Publishing Company This book took me the least time to read -- I didn't like the guy's attitude, and skimmed through his remarks. After thinking, I realized that this is because he is a theatrical designer: too many of his assumptions don't fit. Where we make the same pattern again and again, he would make the same costume more than once only if outfitting a chorus line. We clothe a very small number of people, he seldom costumes the same person twice. We sew in odd hours left over from other duties, he sews and designs for a living. We don't want to clutter our homes with tools used but once a year, he'd have an esoteric tool indeed if he used it only once a week. We have trouble persuading our loved ones to stand still for fittings, his subjects wear costumes for a living. We want methods that are easy to follow and give precise results, he wants methods that are easy to memorize and apply to disparate jobs, that are quick to do, and that give results that aren't so far off that you can't correct it in the fitting. _Personal Patters by Jinni: A manual for Perfect Patternmaking_, Virginia Nastiuk, 1986, apparently self- published Appears to be excellent, though I haven't read it thoroughly. Pages 235-239 are particlarly important for beginners, because they explain that when a pattern doesn't work out satisfactorily, *it isn't always your fault*. Much of it is addressed to the professional dressmaker; all also applies to the housewife, but this isn't a book to dip into for a general idea. If you find it rough going, set it aside and come back to it after you've decided that you seriously want to make clothing. I do recommend the introductory chapters for an explanation of why it is necessary for women to wear custom clothing. _How to Design Your Own Clothes and Make Your Own Patterns_, Claudia Ein, 1975, Doubleday Assumes that you will start with a commercial tissue pattern. Not as educational as starting with measurements and blank paper, but the book should do nicely if you read from the beginning and do all the exercises. She mentions only muslin and broadcloth as fabrics for muslins, so I'll mention that any cheap woven fabric will do. Prints may be confusing, but woven-in patterns such as stripes and checks make your work easier. I dislike her approach of beginning with an A-line sheath. This is easier to design than more-basic garments, as she says, but it is a dead end -- you can use your work on a bodice and straight skirt to design an A-line, but when you move to a bodice or a skirt from an A-line, you have to start from scratch. _How to Design Your Own Dress Patterns: A primer in pattern making for women who like to sew_, Adele P. Margolis, 1959, Hanover House. You'll have to get this one by interlibrary loan, but it's worth reading in fourteen-day installments. From the introduction: "I am a teacher. The teacher's job, it appears to me, is to make her subject clear, its mastery attainable, and its learning a delight." I think she succeeded. She begins by giving you a set of quarter- scale slopers to copy, and proceeds with a series of graduated exercises, each pleasant (It would appear that my fourteen days were up before I'd quite finished this review.) -------------- WCPL pattern-drafting books: ============================ _Designing Apparel Through the Flat Pattern, fourth revised edition_, Ernestine Kopp, Vittorina Rolfo, Beatrice Zellin, and Lee Gross, 1971, Fairchild Publications, Inc., ISBN 87005-094-X. This is marked "Textbook of the FIT -- Fairchild Series" next to a logo for Fashion Institute of Technology, and is library bound. I rather suspect that it was delivered to the library as a shrink-wrapped bundle of loose sheets, for most of the pages appear to have been intended to be written on, and the quarter-scale sloper patterns and quarter-scale drafting tools are printed on one side of light card, plainly intending that the student cut them out and trace around them while doing the exercises. Except for some introductory remarks, _Designing_ concerns itself exclusively with the manipulation of slopers -- somewhere in the book there is a mention of a companion book on how to create slopers. The book is intended as a series of exercises, and the first sentence of the introduction seems antithetical to the principles of Rough Sewing: "The trend of the fashion industry today is such that a rapid output of new designs is imperative." But it is filled with useful information, clearly laid out, and indexed. It is also logically organized -- even if you don't know what the shape you want is called, you can find it fairly easily. (Together with many shapes you'd never have considered -- *every* drafting book includes instructions for designing lantern sleeves; can you even imagine lantern sleeves, except maybe on Judy Jetson? On the other hand, if you study a lantern sleeve, you'll know how a beret is made: no information is completely useless.) The instructions are terse, and get terser as the book goes on. If you are studying without a teacher, or if you are mining a bit out of the middle, it may take some struggle to understand. But if you begin with some idea of what you are doing, or if you've read the introduction and made yourself a copy of the quarter-scale slopers to fiddle with, you'll appreciate the lack of redundance and confusing detail. _Design Your Own Dress Patterns_, Adele P. Margolis, Illustrated by Judy Skoogfors, 1971, Doubleday. May be a second edition of _How to Design Your Own Dress Patterns_; I'll have to compare them. Appears to be a quite thorough and well-organized primer in dress design, but it assumes that you start out with slopers, and I don't notice any specific discussion of pants. (All the principles taught can be applied to any garment, of course.) _How to make clothes that fit and flatter: Step-by-step instructions for women who like to sew_, Adele P. Margolis, Illustrated by Marta Cone and Judy Skoogers, 1969, Doubleday. The emphasis here is on fashion, which makes it less valuable for rough sewing, but it does tell you how to make a commercial pattern fit your figure. Some of the hints on putting a wardrobe together can be useful to the woman who merely wants to look presentable -- well, I shouldn't say "merely", for looking non-startling is *much* harder to accomplish than dressing in the height of fashion. Luckily, once you achieve a style, you can stick to it, changing it only to adapt to changes in girth or circumstances. Pages 177-184 tell how to make dress forms. -------------- ILL pattern-drafting books: Designing Your Own Dress Patterns, Helen Nicol Tanous, Chas. A. Bennet Co., Inc., Copyright 1951. Reviewed October, 2004. Much more than dress design is discussed in this book -- I believe that every conceivable ladies' garment is discussed, including slacks, shorts, and panties (but not briefs), and there is a chapter on children's clothes. (It does not, however, include the lantern sleeve. Trying to make a liar out of me, is she?) This book does not concern itself with fitting or with drafting slopers (here called "basic blocks"), only with design, but it covers that very thoroughly in a mere 208 pages. A quote from the "Letter to the Reader": "It took several years to clarify and simplify this subject, which is usually . . . buried under a mountain of words. . . . You will not be bothered by any such hindrance here, as the only words which are used are those few which are vital to the understanding of the diagrams. The nutshells have been thrown away. The kernels remain." ============== General-Sewing Books: _The Encyclopedia of Sewing_, Adele P. Margolis, 1987, Doubleday. Alphabetically arranged, but amply cross- referenced, so it should be easy to find the topic that you are interested in. -------------- Historical books I've happened across: ====================================== _Everyday Dress of Rural America 1783-1800 With Instructions and Patterns_, Merideth Wright (Illustrated by Nancy Rexford), 1992, Dover. A corrected republication of _Put on thy beautiful garments_, c1990, Clothes Press. This book was written as a guide for people who wanted to dress up for Vermont's bicentennial in 1991. It is very limited in scope, but thorough within that scope, and tells you when information is hard to come by. Underwear was particularly difficult to document. I suggest reading about old clothing whenever the opportunity arises; when you understand why they wore what they wore, it can give you insight into your current work. When I made a "drawstring apron" in 4-H, I assumed that it had been invented strictly as an easy exercise for beginners; I already knew how to make a "belly apron" by pleating or gathering a rectagle onto a band, and never wore my drawstring apron after the fashion show. But the pioneers wore drawstring aprons all the time: not because they are easy to make, but because they are much easier to wash! Upon reading this, I realized that I'd used the same principle in making curtains: instead of pleating the drapes, I sewed on a tape that creats pleats when supported with special hooks -- easier to make, and it opens out flat for cleaning. This led me to realize that a curtain's rod pocket is the same thing as a drawstring's casing. Though I learned curtains and drawstrings separately, I was able to collapse them into one when presenting it to you. ----------------------- Mending books _Thrift with a Needle_, Mildren Graves Ryan, 1954 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York Very good, but there's an earlier edition that's even better. The earlier edition does not show up on Interlibrary loan, and I haven't seen a copy in forty years. _The Mender's Manual_, Estelle Foote, M.D., 1976, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York and London. I checked out this book the same day* I checked out _Shirtmaking_. Like Coffin, Foote is self-taught, but "fresh perspective" isn't my first thought in describing the result. Foote makes altogether too much use of "invisible" thread and fabric cement -- for tacking factory-made clothing back together to get a few more months wear, I suppose such measures are justified, but the thought of monofilament anywhere near human skin makes me itch. Perhaps my view of the methods is colored by my view of the purpose: a sewing circle of educated women mending cast-off clothing in order to give it to "the poor". Why not teach "the poor" how to mend? The educated women in question didn't know how to mend when they started, and therefore could not have taught, but my gut is not prepared to be reasonable. *December 26, 2002 ------------------------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sloper-book suggestions from the sewing list: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 I have two old basic and very helpful books on patern drafting - "Successful Dressmaking" [colorgravure Publication by Griffin Press, Adelaide]] by Ellen and Marietta Resek; and "Pattern Cutting" by Margaret Melliar [B> T> Batsford Ltd London]1968 Christine from NZ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat, 12 Jan 2002 I have three books by Adele Margolis - MYOP, How to make clothes that fit and flatter, and The dressmaking book. Don't have time to look at contents now, but now you know what to look for in the library! Pauline ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat, 12 Jan 2002 Terminology differs from country to country (yes, I am talking English-speaking countries) but here are a few British books: Metric Pattern Cutting (3rd edition), Winifred Aldrich, Blackwell Science, 1997 Make our own Dress Patterns, Brenda Redmile, Batsford 1977 (despite the title, this includes separates/trousers) Creating Fashion, Betty Foster, McDonald & co 1983 (includes good sections on history/development of fashion) A series of books was published by Mills & Boon (yes, of the love stories fame) in 1980. These are titled 'Jackets', 'Shirts and Blouses', 'Trousers' and 'Skirts'. Each deals with the basic block for the titled article. The 'Jackets' one is by Maureen Goldsworthy. Elaine Fraser ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat, 12 Jan 2002 Another one with VERY good information about altering patterns once you have them, even if you aren't a plus size is: Author: Deckert, Barbara. Title: Sewing for plus sizes: design, fit, and construction for ample apparel / Barbara Deckert. Publisher: Newtown, CT : Taunton Press, c1999. Jana ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Elaine Fraser wrote: > and 'Skirts'. Each deals with the basic block for the titled article. > The 'Jackets' one is by Maureen Goldsworthy. Elaine, can you tell me more about the sorts of books Goldsworthy writes? The only title I'd ever seen was a sensible book about adapting clothing for various handicaps -- the best I've seen on the subject. Are there more titles I should be looking for? Kay Lancaster ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 >Elaine, can you tell me more about the sorts of books Goldsworthy writes? I'll be interested in hearing this, also. I have her book Mend It!, and it's quite good. Both the text and illustrations are detailed. An online search for her titles listed books on remaking clothes and making children's garments from 1/2 yard. There is no list of "other titles by this author" in my copy ($1 library discard). The little blurb in the back says she served in the army from 1939 to 1945 and after the war, she was an officer in Gen. Eisenhower's headquarters in France. The paragraph also says she wrote a half-a-dozen other sewing books (this was in 1979). Linda Turcotte ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thank you! May I paste the quoted lines into my bibliography? If so, should I leave in the signature? do you want your whole name in the sig? And if, by some miracle, I finish the work and offer it for sale, do I need to ask again? (By then I'll be at least ninety, and I've always been forgetful -- might be hard to find you.) -- Joy Beeson ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 Joy, one of the best and fastest methods for developing a bodice sloper, in my experience, is draping. Connie Amaden Crawford did a series in Sew Beautiful magazine earlier this year on it, and she's got a small book on developing other bodice blocks from the sloper: http://www.fashionpatterns.com/books/bodice_book.html The basic sleeve draft is in her draping book: http://www.fashionpatterns.com/books/draping_book.html and you can get the skirt sloper from the pants sloper quite easily... I've been using her pants drafting method for several years now, and they work well for every body I've fitted: http://www.fashionpatterns.com/books/books.html Kay Lancaster ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sun, 13 Jan 2002 On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Jacki wrote: > I don't want to seem to dumb here since this seems like something I should > be able to figure out (or already know), but could someone give me a brief > description of how "draping" works. See if you can get a copy of Connie Amaden Crawford's Art of Fashion Draping from your library (you may have to interlibrary loan it). She does the "classic" form of draping, where you make a pattern by starting with a couple of rectangles of fabric, similar in weight to what you want your final fabric to be, and start pinning them on a mannequin (or directly on the body), keeping the grain lines straight and arranging the fullness of the design as you want it. It works much like the old joke about the sculptor describing how he makes a statue of a horse: get a block of marble, and cut away everything that doesn't look like a horse... except you're cutting away everything that doesn't look like the garment you want. Some classical draped garments include saris, togas, pareos. The article on Kleibacher's bias dresses in the newest Threads magazine illustrate some dresses that were developed by draping--http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00108.asp Another example of a draped garment is Tara McGinnis's Omnigarment--see it here: http://www.costumes.org/pages/muchado3.htm and here: http://www.costumes.org/pages/instruct2.htm -- the basic garment is "nothing much"... it's all in how it's arranged. Other books on draping include Jaffe and Relis, "Draping for Fashion Design", Armstrong's Draping for Apparel Design (that one is not really the classic form of draping, as she starts with an approximately drafted pattern and then goes on from there), or Betty Kirke's Madeleine Vionnet biography. Kay Lancaster ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sat, 12 Jan 2002 There are several but the Margolis book is "How to make clothes that fit and flatter" You will enjoy reading it, it is rather old and one of the things I enjoyed most was her saying women were expected to wear a girdle with everything, including pants! Kathy ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EOF