Sewing Books X-ray PART 1: Sew Many Dresses Sew Little Time

Good day, my fellow fabric freaks. So 2nd blog in a month, eh, I keep this up, it might even become a regular thing. Normally on these blogs, I aim to communicate my makes, opinions, information in a manner reminiscent of your drunk mate regaling you with tales pre-covid of being out on the razz and having a whale of time. Ah, memories...Presenting our hobby in a really light and breezy manner. I know in advance that is going to be a bit more challenging this time around, but I hope I can inject a bit of fun into this either way but today's mission is to break open those spines and examine the bones.

If you are like me, you are given sewing books as presents, treat yourself on payday or use those amazon gift vouchers on the little buggers. Recently, I have really examined my book collection and realised I haven't actually used many of them. A huge wasted resource. They look pretty sitting on a shelf but they have become rather weighty, shelf-eating, dust collectors. So I am starting to look at these books afresh and hopefully find some inspiration or have an opportunity for a clear out.

When I'm browsing Amazon for that payday treat, I am really frustrated that you are often buying blind. The amount of information on the book is really minimal and there is a lot of assumption that the author/designer is someone that you are already familiar with, or you follow them on instagram or fellow sewers give a review. However, I often find that reviews tend to focus on a make out of the book, rather than a deeper examination of the sizing, no of patterns, instructions, style, and value for money. So setting myself a rather large task, I am going to attempt to write a really full review for each of the books in my collection. I have quite a few so this task may take several moons. Also, for clarity, most of them have never been used for a project so I am forming a wish list at the same time.

I hope you guys find this interesting but if this bores your elasticated pants of you, please, please let me know.

Sew Many Dresses Sew Little Time by Tanya Whelan (Amazon Price today: £17.88)

Gosh, this book could take many reviews to write about. Published in 2015, this currently has an Amazon customer ratings of 4.5 stars. So, a good start thus far.

From flicking through, I would say that the patterns in this book, are your classic shapes, a 1940's to 1960's wish silhouette mainly intended for woven fabrics.

This isn't your average 5-6 patterns with 3 variations each, this claims 200 dresses under your complete control, with interchangeable pattern pieces: Bodices, skirts, collars, sleeves all as separate pieces. That makes my heart do a little pitter patter already.

The patterns come in a slim cardboard sleeve at the back of the book, which, until today, has not been opened as as many previous attempts to even open it required Jean Claude Van Damme to punch his way into it. What I mean is that the sticker that they they used was so welded, I had to tear the packaging apart to take a gander at the patterns pieces. I didn't want to tear it but I had no choice. Seriously, the glue they used should be ultilised for industrial purpose, like holding a chassis together,

not a bit of cardboard.

So let's take this on a monetary level....200 dresses for £17.88, thats £0.09 per pattern. Holy shitsnacks, thats good. So that must mean that the size range is cack too?

Unlike many, many of these books, the size range accommodates a little more curve. I don't even have to do an arse adjustments

Fantastic value, right? OK let's keep going.

Reading some of the amazon reviews, the main criticisms were: not for beginners, facings not included, that's it.

However, the best critical review I found was on Curvy Sewing Collective (link to page) who looked that the lack of cup sizes (designed for a B cup), and the difference between this bodice and a cashmerette bodice and well, take a look, its quite significant. The other criticism and the lack of colour on the pattern pieces. I thought this was an odd criticism, personally, so hence, karate chopping my way into it, but have a look. I would agree, its pretty damned faint. However, the pieces are nested rather than overlaid and that is a huge relief.

Ok, so let's take a look at some of the styles, picking some of my favourites

Ok, soooooo I can see a couple of problems with representation. Despite the curvier size range, no models are particularly curvy, they are quite young, not a sniff of silver foxy lady amongst them.

As the post from Curvy sewing collective pointed out, many many of the styles are strapless which for us ladies with a bit of jiggle, could be a bit of a problem.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the boob prisons, but for politeness sake, I don't want to give a 70 year old horn dog palpitations. However, there is still plenty to pick and choose from.

So how does this achieve this wondrous 200 patterns for less than a penny each. Well, here is the tricky bit. This isn't so much a pattern book where you cut and sew and the book guides you. This book is more....inititation into pattern drafting. Hence why this has sat on my shelf for 4-5 years. But looking at the illustrations now...let me give you an example below, that's not too scary for me now...I don't think

In terms of the construction details, the language does assume a level of confidence and experience of the sewist, yet the information does all seems to be there, if you read the book from cover to cover. The illustrations are numerous, yet clear. There is a heck of a lot of information in this book, it was written by someone who really tried to get this right and that gives me hope about the results I will (eventually) yield and I am going to sit tonight with a malibu and coke and a few years of experience under my belt and I am going to read this cover to cover, as the author intends.

Definitely one for when you have nothing to do and plenty of time to do it, to quote Mae West. For you to get real value out of this book, you are going to have to devote serious time and fabric yardage to perfecting each of the basic blocks for your shape, before you can start to manipulate them with any confidence. I think for someone, at the stage I am being to approach for my skill, this is a really good book to have in the arsenal. There is quite a few instructions on adjustments, which look to be really handy. If you want to mess around and have a quick result, perhaps not the book for you.

Saying that, there isn't a single dress which gives me the happy and and a unsquashable urge to get out the tracing paper. Perhaps, I am fooled by better styling, or brighter fabrics, or I am too lazy, perhaps I need to be more objective and look at the style lines.

So all in all, yep this one is for the keep pile, I think. If not for the dresses but for the handholding to begin pattern hacking.

I hope this review/X-ray into this pattern book has been an interesting read. I would LOVE to hear from anyone, particularly on the more bootylicious end on how they found the fit of the blocks. Equally, if this review is missing any information or frankly it caused you to snooze, please let me know.

The next one in the review pile is The Great Sewing Bee: Fashion with Fabric.