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July 23-24, 2021
Well I spoke too soon. From now on when things are going swell on the site, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Yes, the site went down yesterday, which meant all the graphics on this week's email went wonky (i.e. nothing, nada, zilch)! Last night, I fixed it, however that's why the email is a day and a little longer late!
Below (where I have all the info on this month's featured resource) is a photo of my library. So let's look at some of the books and which ones I like and the ones I don't. Course I've just about culled out all the books I don't like and have given those away which is the nice thing about moving into your one-level forever home!
So what I have now, is not only my core, but my most favorite books. Click on the pic to get more information about the book.
Fitting & Pattern Alteration
 Number one by far is the text book I used when I was studying under my mentor. And it has notes from when I studied with her that are invaluable. I think the notes are as valuable as the book itself.
I had the spine cut off and put in a spiral back because this way it stays open without breaking the back and having the pages fall out. It's one of my favorite go-to books.
Pattern Magic (there are 3 books in this series and they are all fun)
A book for great ideas is this pattern magic book. These are techniques that you can use on your core patterns.
Don't judge this book by the cover.
The whole idea of this bow really appeals to me, of course it's not for every figure, but these are the sorts of ideas in this book that can be very interesting.
This is one of these books that looks boring and way over your head, but I invite you to try some of these designs. They are nothing if not mind-expanding. (I think I feel another weekly email subject coming on!) It is chocked full of ideas on neat closures for your off-the-wall design that could really look smashing. I refer to this book over and over, simple for ideas and to think in a different way about closures.
Couture The Art of Fine Sewing
This is a book from the 80s and updated in 1993. Roberta was one of the first to teach couture or high-end sewing in classes. She was a real hoot. She had these classes in her home which had a sort of barracks on the side of her home (really it was a pretty spectacular view out the "barracks" windows.)  But she would light up in the middle of class. Students would complain, and she would simply say if you don't like it, leave. Of course students had already
paid for the sessions and were put out that smoking was allowed in class. This was back in the day when smoking was still everywhere and obviously Roberta hadn't quit and wasn't going to.
That said, the woman was a fantastic designer and thank heavens she wrote a book cause like a lot of folks I wouldn't have taken classes in a smoke-filled room. In this book you can get gobs of ideas about some really fantastic techniques.
The Tunic Bible
Written by Sara Gun (Of Goodbye Valentino fame) & Julie Starr this is a book packed full of neckline and sleeve ideas for your core pattern. This isn't about the core pattern itself or proportion and scale, but mostly about different ideas on all sorts of variation. This is a fabulous idea book.
KOOS - Couture & Collage
 Another idea book packed full of great ideas on collage of fabrics as well as design ideas to really rock your core pattern.
There isn't a time I don't go through this book and am spurred by some idea or concept in the book.
Haute Couture
 This is one of those gloriously edited books that will make you drool. The detail and workmanship in each one of these photos is enough to spur you onto some really fancy
detailing.
 This dress if from the House of Worth and we've all heard of this place. This was the epicenter of Paris becoming the fashion capital of the world. And the House of Worth was
the first "Maison" to show style shows. But the workmanship on these gowns was incredible. Notice center front how it matches...something never
seen in RTW.
Geoffrey Beene
To this day, I still love the soft and subtle lines of Geoffrey Beene. He used a lot of these lines as darts and fitting mechanisms in his clothing. I thought he was king and still have every one of his Vogue Patterns.
It could have been as much the gloriously happy colors as much as the pattern match that he loved to put in his garments. I'm not sure which I love more.
Alexander McQueen - Genius of a Generation
So a lot of folks have heaped praise upon this guy and sometimes we folks on the street are a little cautious of that, especially during this time of Grunge (I promise I won't go into my rant, but it's hard). So in the time of really ugly fashion, out comes this gem, and that's why so many editors and critics and people in the fashion know went nuts over this guy. He was a little like the designer's designer, but there's a lot we regular folks can
take away here.
Even if you do nothing else than just admire the looks, that's all it takes.
I found this book to be as useful and informative as the Alexander McQueen Met Show catalogue that was a huge hit in the 2000's, but if you don't want a huge volume of a book, then this smaller book is your cup of tea.
If I can I never miss an opportunity to visit any museum featuring a designer, even if he/she is a moderately well-know designer. The most plain and ordinary of designer can give us a plethora of ideas and if nothing else spark out imagination and get the little grey cells operating in creative mode really fast.
And a library is a wonderful place to hang out to get more of those ideas with books on designers retrospective collections to the giant catalogues from the Metropolitan Museum in New York (they even have special fashion exhibits), V & A in London, Palais Galliera in Paris and many others throughout the world. If you visit these places, by all means stop off in the book store. I'm not sure you'll love me or hate me after this piece of advice, cause it will take you
hours just to get through everything. One of the fun things to do is get online and go through their fashion books in their online store.
Hopefully this gives you some ideas about books to put in your own library. My sewing/fashion library is really filled much more with fashion than sewing. Why? Because I've gotten to the point in my sewing (and hopefully that day will arrive for you), that once I see a technique or a look, I can work through how to do it and often even modify it for my look and style, not the designers'!
The sleeve or more importantly the armscye seam (besides seam-ripping), I think, is what everyone perceives as the hardest seam alive. Well, mastering it does take some practice, but everything in sewing does. Once mastered, the sleeve is a beautiful thing. Yes, I know. I don't have a life when I think this is a beautiful thing, but there is is!!!
Watch me take this mess of a sleeve:
and turn it into this:
Don't purchase both of these resources - you only need one or the other.
What I've done here is that I know a lot of you already have the Entire Sleeve Resource. The one thing I've changed and updated and extended is the Armscye-Armhole Alteration Resource. So I'm offering both of them special this month.
If you don't have the Entire Sleeve Resource, it's at a tremendous discount. If you have the Entire Sleeve Resource and want to update it, the Armscye-Armhole Alteration Resource is at a discount to add to your already purchased Entire Sleeve package.
Here's the Entire Sleeve Resource
Here's the newly updated Armscye-Armhole Alteration Resource
On the Blog
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A student asked a very interesting question, which I love to hear. This question is one that I've discussed here ...
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Good fashion can take me away for hours even before I realize what's happened. A simple search, or worse a ...
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