Bias-Cut Dressmaking: A Step-by-Step Introduction

This book is handy to have around if you are interested in drafting women's bias-cut garments. It really should be titled "Bias-cut Patternmaking: A Step-By-Step Introduction" as it is very much not a dressmaking primer or manual.For whom was this book written? It would be useful to the intermediate to advanced sewist who is already familiar with the order of operations for constructing garments who has only had a bit of drafting experience and wants to expand their skill-set. It is entirely focused on women's clothing and, as other reviews have mentioned, involves a LOT of lingerie drafts.It does not give any construction details and does not include men's drafts. This isn't a problem if you can adapt the concepts, but there are enough men in the creative world sewing (and being sewn for) that it seems a little off to me. Nevertheless, the person picking it up needs to understand that this isn't a stand-alone book for the average sewist.I could see this being VERY useful for someone wanting to draft more and experiment with bias cuts at the same time; I could see it especially useful for costumers and fashion enthusiasts who want to recreate underwear and basic evening gowns as they would have been before the era of super stretch knits, elastic, and spandex.It does not go into the more abstracted bias concepts and theories that you see used in Vionnet, James, Halston, et al. So there are no tubes or conceptual drawings that trick your eye and make you think about the physics of the fabric - this is much more straightforward. The most abstracted design in it is the "Bias-panelled Dress with Cap Sleeve" on page 94. It walks you through the flat patterning of a spiral-cut gown, but not the modern spiral that Halston and James worked with - this is much more focused on the pattern rather than geometric trickery, if that makes sense. If you are searching for this type of bias conversation, check out Bias Cut Blueprints (ISBN 978-0990464303).This totally deserves a place on the shelf if you are a competent sewist who wants to start expanding your repertoire without too many growing pains.Holman has created this concise and very direct little gem of a book, but the person buying it needs to be aware of what it does and does not do for you.

There are very few idea books for people who can draw flat sewing patterns. This is one of them. It is all about drafting sewing patterns specifically for a variety of bias cut garments. There are no sewing instructions, and little in the way of description on sewing bias garments. There are a number of garments including skirts, pants,dresses and lingerie - more lingerie than I was interested in. I was able to draft a really cute skirt without a problem. If you know how to sew, or can use the instructions from other patterns, and want to know how to draft your own bias dress (among other thing),, then this book is for you. If you need sixty dozen illustrated steps for everything, this book is not for you.

I normally try to find at least something good to say about books I review, even if I didn't like them. I'm finding that extremely difficult in this instance. I probably would've gotten better results from spending my money on commercial patterns and reverse engineering them.First off, the only indication that you have that the patterns in this book are bias is the grain line arrow on each pattern. And dresses? I don't see any dresses here - I only see slips, which could be worn in a pinch as a slinky gown. There's no technical information about the actual process of bias garment construction - nothing about warping or hanging the bias, nothing about seam treatments or how to keep bias seams from puckering, nothing about hemming or... I could go on. I've learned more from perusing books on Vionnet.Probably the only useful thing I got is a slightly more intelligible explanation of an over-hip block, which I'll then use for drafting corsets from Waisted Efforts. The rest of the patterns are endless non-pattern variations on underwear, bodysuits, and step-ins which are almost, if not entirely useless to me. Someone commented that these are period undergarments? Not so much, unless you're counting 1990 as a period. Most of them are what I can only call, delicately, "granny panties".I'm also thoroughly unimpressed by the bizarrely condescending introduction to the book, and the author's terrible rendering skills. I also see no evidence that any of these garments has ever been made, except for the partial pictures on the front and back covers. Of course, these are made totally worthless by the fact that you a) can't see enough of them to make out the dress, and b) by the few seam lines you CAN see you can easily deduce that their patterns are not, in fact, included in this volume.One line summary: This book is a terribly misnamed and incomplete pattern drafting course for underwear items.

Awesome

This book gave me the wrong impression....I really though that I was going to find all the secrets on "Bias Cut" sewing.....No, not at all. The very basics that you learn in any other book....It is more an explanation of how to lay the patterns on the fabric, but does not talk about the real important issues when bias cutting and sewing.

maybe ok for the complete novice. otherwise pretty standard stuff.

This book has lots of patterns as examples for the bias cut. A great book to have for reference in the sewing library. However I was wanting tips and ideas 'how' to cut on the bias in particular for silk, chiffon etc.

I will learn

The author is not a lady of many words and the book consists of schemes how to make pattern blocks.Half of the book is dedicated to knickers, camisoles etc, second half is for dresses (or night gowns).Only few really interesting patternsMost of the book is actually covered in more detail in other construction books. So there is nothing new for people who own already some construction books, and not enough explanations for beginner.Glad I got it from marketplace and didn't pay the full price.

The book contains good information for creating pattern blocks for a number of garments but gives VERY little information on bias cut dressmaking!

This title is a little mis informing. This is a book giving instruction for bias cut pattern making only. There is no content for the construction of such garments . However the instruction is simple enough to follow I would say for most .

great thanks x

looking to improve or learn how to sew garments cut on the bias? How to work with the stretchy seams, how to level a hem, how to handle the insets, which techniques to choose to finish the seams without altering the features of the fabric and all that kind of things?Not the book for you.This book merely gives you instructions to create a wide number of patterns for underwear and dresses. But there are no instructions, besides the "use an overlocker" and other such things in one single introduction page. The author doesn't even mention to hang a garment before leveling the hem, or anything linked to actual dressmaking.The title and the description in the back of the book are utterly misleading. Calling the book "pattern drafting for bias cut garments" would have been a better choice, as there's little to none of the dressmaking instructions.However there's also no insight on how to draft or adjust the given patterns to make your own patterns. So basically it's just a series of instructions on how to recreate the listed patterns on someone's measurements. So maybe "draft yourself 50 patterns for bias cut garments" would have been a much better choice.Even the back of the book gives the illusion of more information being included.