Make your own clothes, is a craft book with a difference. It has the usual step by step instructions but it also comes with a CD rom that prints off custom made patterns to your size! Simply input your vital statistics, press print and voila perfect custom pattern for your bod! So in theory the book should be brilliant but is it all that it promises to be?
I bought this book on a bit of a whim and have been studying it for a while now and I think the simplest way of doing this is to highlight the book's good and bad points because there are multiples for both!
1) The book is part of the C&B craft range and I have a couple of these books and find them fantastic reference points. They are great for beginners to advanced sewers and have good overall techniques and advice.
2)The cd-rom that comes with the book means you can print out patterns to be your exact size. You simply imput your measurements and it will create a tailor made pattern. You print it out on your own computer and stick the sheets together so you can make multiple copies of the same pattern.
(one tailored for you and one for a friend possibly?) The CD rom is also very simple to use and happily you do not have to be a computer whiz to use it!
3)Lovely full colour illustrations and simple to follow steps.
4)Generally it is a nice book, nice print, nice pics, nice cd-rom, you know it's nice!
1) The patterns are a little hit and miss. I would say just over a third of them I will attempt at some point. I am 21 but by no means looking for uber trendy outfits, just wearable. Sadly I have a feeling this book may have been rehashed from the 80s or 90s but with more modern pics. Some of the patterns are God awful! The swing jacket and elasticated waist trousers in particular!
2)Though the pictures are nice and in full colour the models all look a little stiff and uncomfortable. A teenage girl in a hideous swing jacket in YELLOW. Need I say more?
3)Some of the pieces which would be brilliant have been made in TERRIBLE fabric. It's a shame whoever was the design brains behind this book didn't research more trendy or even non-dating fabric.
4)The price. At the moment I think this is still a little steep for a book that is GOOD but not GREAT. Especially where there are so many great patterns available via BurdaStyle. The tailor made patterns cinched the deal for me and while I don't regret buying it I could have easily waited for it to be reduced further. Not an essential purchase for me I suppose!
You can currently buy it at Amazon priced at £8.56
1 comment:
I completely agree about the awful fabric choices! My mum gave me this book at Christmas (I'm yet to use it but not through any fault of the book - I just have a really long 'to sew' list). I think the idea of inputting your measurements and getting a tailor-made (no pun intended) pattern is great, but why, oh why, when they'd bothered to put that much effort into the book and the software did they, for example, make the jeans-style trousers, that could have looked normal, out of a bizarre bogey-coloured polyester? Please excuse my frankness there. I thought the worst offender was the pussy bow blouse they made out of a horrible pink fabric. It all just looked so polyester.
Having ranted a bit, I did think the summer dress pattern was made up really nicely and that photo did look quite tasteful.
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