Patterning Books

This is the book I looked at this weekend. 

I coughed up $85 to buy this book, it was one of the more expensive in print books I have bought. I figured it would put me on the right track because, if you are paying attention you can tell that the draping book I already own is written by the same woman. And I always did kind of wonder why we used a draping book written by one person and a drafting book written by another. Of course, I guess that writing a draping book doesn't mean you are qualified to write a drafting book.

Anyway this book is a flat patterning book. It includes many, many blocks, various bodice blocks, several different pants blocks and block for knits, just to name a few. The book appears to be very straightforward, explaining things step by step and even including construction techniques and other information not generally included in patterning books. It looks like it will be a good reference for me and would be a good guide for a person who is learning on their own without the help of a teacher/mentor. As a book to teach and practice with I think I prefer Apparel Making for Fashion Design even with its quirks, because of its layout for a classroom setting. You can see many different designs all based on one technique on one page, you can see how they are related and have students do the different alterations and share.

At times I found the illustrations to not be as clear as I would have liked, but there are a lot of illustrations and I guess too many is better than not enough. I also don't like that the seam allowance is marked on the illustrations, I think it gets in the way.  While there are many slopers/blocks to build the measurements you use to build them and the instructions for drafting the block are intertwined. Which is good, if you need step by step instructions the first time you create a sloper, but if you are going to do many I would prefer to have a page where you calculate all your measurements then instructions that say "take such-and-such measurement", so I look on my measurement sheet to find "such-and-such" and plug it in instead of following directions and calculating measurements at the same time. I have decided to do a test on how well various basic slopers come out. I haven't started yet, but I went to measure my dress form and without going through the steps I didn't know what measurements I needed! Which is terribly unhelpful because I don't even know what measurements I need before I start drafting the block!

Besides having a section on knits from t-shirts to leotards and underwear another interesting part of this book is that it has instructions for a custom dress form that is better (more useful) than just wrapping yourself in duct tape (which you can't pin), even creating a base for it to stand on.

The simple clear instructions, drafts, sections on knits and pants, and helpful construction and other techniques make this book worth it for me. I may recommend it to students, but at $85-$95 I don't think I would require it. However, this book could be excellent for someone starting out sewing and learning to pattern, who doesn't have a teacher/mentor. It is a lot of money, but you wouldn't be paying for a class! And the custom dress form is just cool. The book is also spiral bound so it lays flat when you use it.