This book has been around since 1978 in one form or another, and it dates from the days when making a garment from scratch was quite usual. Even so, it doesn't assume you already know the basics, and explains even the simpler things really well, so it is a superb buy for someone looking to go into proper dressmaking or designing their own clothes.
Use this book and you can produce properly made, couture-quality clothes at home. Or run up something for the kids using a remnant. It's your choice. The main part of the text takes you, step by step, through every aspect of making a garment, including cutting and fitting your own patterns, from underlying principles to finishing touches. There is guidance, with excellent diagrams, to all the processes involved. There are garments to make, too, with the patterns shown as diagrams for you to scale up to full size on paper.
The last section of the book is "sewing for the home" with patchwork projects, curtains, soft toys - the whole lot, including a four-foot-long cuddly Stegosaurus! But the main emphasis is on clothes.
Because the clothes are designed from first principles, the book hasn't dated; in fact, many of the 1970s clothes featured are exactly what is in the shops at the moment, which is amusing! I would recommend this book very highly indeed to anyone interested in learning to design, in taking their sewing skills beyond the basics in most recent books, or especially in following the "new thriftiness" by adapting and altering clothes or making something new from something old.
