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Welcome to my Favourite Sewing Books library. During my journey, I’ve purchased quite some books to learn how to draft, sew, fit and identify fabrics. Today I’ll share this little library I’ve created with you, so you can decide which books would be useful for you too.
I will order the books from my favourite to my least favourite. I’ll also link a more in depth review and a link to purchase them through affiliate links in each of them! I really hope this is helpful.
Patternmaking for fashion design – Helen Joseph Armstrong
This has been and will be one of my favourite books of all times. Patternmaking for fashion design is a drafting book. It has almost all the information you need to create any design you want. It offers instructions, designs, examples, exercises for pretty much everything.
Talks about tops and its foundations, trousers, dresses, woven, elastic, all the basics and it increases difficulty as it goes. The book always follows the same steps. First explains the principle, second it gives an example of how to do it and third it presents you with practise designs.
If you want to see the full review of this book click here
If you want to purchase the book click here
Pattern Cutting for Lingerie, Beachwear and Leisurewear – Ann Haggar
This book was the first drafting book I ever bought. I wanted to learn how to draft a bustier and this was the perfect solution. I have not seen a lot of people with this one in their library but I can tell you it’s gold. It explains how to create the basic to patterns and how to modify them to create almost every lingery, beach and leisure type of clothing
Some designs might be a bit old fashioned but you can also modify them to get to your pattern. The drawings in the book are all in scale which means that you can compare it with yours. The instructions are easy to follow but there is no explanation on why you are doing what you are doing.
There is a section for elastic fabric that did not work that well for me, not because the patterns are wrong but because there is no introduction to these types of fabric or how to reduce the drawing depending on the elasticity factor.
Overall I love this book and would recommend it to anyone that is interested in specific lingerie designs but without interest on the reasons behind the procedure.
If you want to purchase the book click here
Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear – Winifred Aldrich
For what I’ve seen, this book is a staple in most sewists libraries. It’s a very good book for beginners. It comes with the basic foundations and it shows how to modify them for specific designs. The designs are also a little bit old fashioned but they are easy to adapt.
The book comes with some explanations on why things are done a specific way. The main problems in this book for me are that it tries to re invent the wheel. For example, the basic top foundation comes with a bust dart on the neck. Also, the basic jeans foundations are patterned for the low waist. It also presents you with a lot of basic foundations without giving much explanation on the difference between them. For example, the difference between flat cutting of normal cutting.
If you want to purchase the book click here
Pattern Cutting – Dennic Chunman Lo
This book was gifted to me as a Christmas present. When I started drafting I found it confusing, as it goes into a lot of detail. For example, when drafting skirts it explains how many darts you should have and why. After some years of practise I find this book a really nice source of information. It offers all the basic blocks and it has my favourite method to draft sleeves. The way it explains things can sometimes be a bit complicated but if you have experience it’s a great way to learn a bit more.
If you want to purchase the book click here