Sew What! Skirts

I'm on a mission to learn to make "real" apparel patterns.  Not "real" in terms of industry standards for manufacturing purposes, but real in that they fit together properly and I understand what adjustment does what to the fit.  I grew up sewing with commercial patterns (my mother only liked Vogue patterns) and adventurous to me was taking a different pocket style from one pattern and using it on another.   But I want to be able to take a pair of pants or a blouse out of my closet that fits well and make another one like it.

To that end, I ordered this book that I've been reading about on other blogs Sew What! Skirts by Francesca Denhartog & Carole Ann Camp.  Their concept is awesome- measure your waist and hips and determine your skirt length and you can make any one of the 16 skirt styles they feature.  You can either make a pattern or cut out the fabric directly.  And don't panic if you are a beginning sewer- they cover basic sewing techniques such as darts and finishing raw edges in the first chapter.  They cover a variety of skirt styles and the nice thing is, most of them are something I would actually put on my body.  (They don't use every decorative stitch on their sewing machine, for example.)

I will definitely be making one or more of these skirts once I get Mona sized.

Comments

[Kristin]

Thank you so much for the book recommendation. Though I am surrounded each day by great fabrics and trims for work, I too have recently been yearning to sew for myself (skirts as a matter of fact)! I love so many of the fabrics and trims we use - would just like to see them on ME! Can't wait to check it out!

[Mary]

I love this book! I actually had self-drafted a skirt before I read the book and learned some nice fine tuning to make it fit better.