Book Review: Couture Sewing Techniques, by Claire B. Shaeffer
This book is written specifically for people who want to spend a lot of time making sure their finished garment is runway-worthy. It focuses on which hand stitches to use for what, which seams and hems will give you the specific look you’re going for, and how to painstakingly craft your perfectly-fitted garment (no joke, there’s an entire section on how to use ironing to selectively shrink fabric to mold it to your body, among other things).
This book is not designed for people who just want to know how to sew and make their own clothes, but if you want to level-up your Cosplay and impress the judges at the next Cosplay Contest, this is the book for you! It covers most of the main techniques used in haute couture (basically "finest high-fashion sewing"), like the stuff that comes out of the fanciest Parisian fashion houses, and goes into excruciating detail about the correct ways to hold fabric and which directions to hand-stitch which seams. If you want your Cosplay to be as fancy and time-consuming as you can possibly make it, this is the book for you.
I’d say this book isn’t for beginners, or anyone just starting out. When I read through it, I found many things I wouldn’t have understood even two years ago, so beginners would have trouble with it. Experienced Cosplayers, on the other hand, should do fine. And if all else fails, you can always turn to Google to look up tutorials if the written instructions don’t work for you (I know I tend to learn visually better than by reading the words, so photos and video tutorials are better for me).
If you want the fanciest hand-sewn seams, and painstakingly hand-beaded designs for your dream Cosplay, this is probably a good place to start. It has sections on basically every hand stitch, seam, and finish you can think of, and more tiny construction details than you knew existed.
The entire book is basically a love letter to couture sewing, and goes into exacting detail about pretty much everything it mentions. It’s basically a textbook, if textbooks spent half their time waxing poetic about their subjects. All in all, a decent purchase. I got a copy for ~$30 new, which is definitely cheaper than trying to learn any of this from a class.
Tl;dr: If you want to take your Cosplay to the next level, and don’t mind spending an impressive amount of time hand-stitching . . . well, everything, this is the book for you. Cosplay is often all about the little details, and this book is nothing but little details. Probably best for more experienced Cosplayers who are trying to take their next costume contest really seriously.
9/10. Not for beginners, but thorough and useful for experienced sewers.
SELAMAAAAAAA JANTUNGKU MASIH BERDETAAAAAAK SELAMA ITU PULA ENGKAU MILIKKUUUU SE! LA! MA! DARAHKU MASIH MENGAAAALIIIIIR CINTAKU PASTI TAKKAN PERNAH BERAKHIR~
gET OUT OF MY ASKBOX WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME ?????? That’s actually a good song but why our language is so cringe……..and it’s been years since the last time I heard that song. Watch me doing payback.
I’m gonna be real with you, this book is the most expensive book I’ve reviewed so far, which means it wouldn’t really work well for anyone on a budget. This textbook was recommended to me by a college acquaintance who used it as part of a fashion design course she took several years ago. And, honestly, aside from the price, I like the book so far.
This book is designed to teach you how to create your own custom clothing patterns from scratch, tailored to your specific measurements (or someone else’s). It’s written in an approachable way, and gives decently understandable explanations of all the steps involved in creating your own custom patterns. This book offers a more advanced introduction to clothing pattern design than the other pattern drafting books I’ve reviewed, which would be great for those who want to become professional costume makers. (if that’s not your cup of tea, this book would work just as well, and cost half as much.)
This book has the basics, like drafting a custom skirt pattern, figuring out arm holes, and an entire chapter on ways to mess with darts, and covers something I personally haven’t seen before which is creating a Moulage (basically a skin-tight garment which you can then use as a base for all other patterns you create for yourself, similar to a fitted shell). I’d actually never heard of a moulage until I got this book, but it seems like a useful thing to know how to do if you want to take the extra time to make a truly form-fitting costume for your next Cosplay competition, as long as you don’t mind putting in the time.
The instructions in this book are all written in the “using this measurement, place this point on that line” style, and look kinda like word problems from a high school geometry class, but that tends to be the style that works best for me when it comes to learning how to create my own patterns. I need to know the why and the how before I can understand things properly, and “place this point here for this reason” works pretty well for me. It’s not for everyone though, so if geometry isn’t your cup of tea I’d recommend trying a different book (maybe this one).
I got this book for probably . . ~$65? Amazon has it listed for like $150, but if you go directly through the publisher you can get it for less. Unfortunately the publisher just raised the price, so it’s now ~$85 to get a copy. Better than Amazon’s price, but still not great for the Cosplayer on a budget.
Tl;dr: This book does a decent job of explaining and demonstrating how to make custom clothing patterns from scratch, and would be great for anyone who wanted to get into professional costume or clothing design, but the cost is a bit much for the casual Cosplayer. I’d say if you just want to get the basics down and not worry about starting a professional fashion design studio, go for a less expensive option like this one I linked above.
Rating: 8/10. The book is good, but too pricey to be practical.
Book Review: Patternmaking for Fashion Design, by Helen Joseph Armstrong
This pattern making book was recommended by the presenter at a Cosplay workshop I went to. So far I’m not sure I like the book - sure, it has sections on almost literally everything you might want to make, from shirts, to pants, to swim suits, but it reads like it’s written for a classroom setting and seems to assume that the people reading it are getting supplemental information somewhere else.
I’d say that, while this book might be great for fashion design students looking to get a degree, it’s not great for Cosplay unless you already know the basics of designing and making your own clothing. I’ve had some trouble understanding the explanations of the terms and concepts presented, and with figuring out the instructions for how to design different elements of a garment, so I’m not sure how others like me, with little-to-no fashion design experience, would fare.
I’m going to be honest and say I couldn’t really get through the instructionals in this book, and the bits I did try to figure out myself just made me turn to Google for help.
I’m sure it would be a useful book to have if I knew what it was trying to tell me, but I can’t get much out of it with my current experience level. Maybe in the future when I’ve made a few more costumes myself I’ll be able to decode the secrets this book contains, but that day is not today.
If you already know something about clothing design, or want to try your hand at puzzling out the instructions and explanations, you can get a copy of the book on Amazon for somewhere between $30 - $170 (it is technically a textbook, so some editions come with the textbook price tag. But if you get the paperback edition, which is printed for international use and has the same contents as the official US textbook version, it’s only like ~$30).
Tl;dr: Probably great for fashion design students taking a college course, not so great for Cosplay. The book assumes some kind of supplementary information is being given to you, and making sense of the explanations without that info requires excessive Googling.
Rating: I’d say 6/10. I’m sure it’s great for people who know what they’re doing, but it’s not great for newbies trying to learn, or for people who didn’t major in fashion design.
Book Review: The Dressmaking Technique Bible, by Lorna Knight
The Dressmaking Technique Bible is a good go-to for detail-oriented people who want to tailor and modify their own clothing. It’s one of the only sewing books I’ve flipped through that has a section explaining the uses of different types of sewing needles, and has a good section on different types of fabric, complete with suggested sewing techniques for each. It also has instructions for embroidery and beading, which is rare.
Like with all written sewing how-to’s, the text instructions can be a little confusing, since trying to describe how something should be folded and sewn can be hard to do with written words. The pictures included with each step make it pretty easy to puzzle out what the text is trying to tell you, though, so it’s not too bad.
From what I’ve seen, it would mostly be useful for messing around with pre-existing patterns, since it doesn’t really have instructions for making clothing patterns by hand (for that you’d want to try this book or this book), but the tailoring section covers pretty much everything you’d need to customize whatever pattern you happen to be using.
This book would be great for modifying patterns for Cosplay. The sections on the small custom details would be perfect for making that hard-to-find appliqué, adding hidden pockets to your costume, or getting that tailored fit you can’t usually get from pre-made clothing.
I haven’t had to use my copy of this book much yet, I haven’t tried to make many truly customized Cosplay as of this posting, but I have a feeling the detail work will be a lot easier with this book as a reference.
Tl;dr: If you want a relatively comprehensive book on tailoring and detail work, and/or want to have a decent reference book on-hand, you can get this one for relatively cheap - I think mine was probably $30 new.
Book Review: Elementary Sewing Skills, from Merchant & Mills.
The Elementary Sewing Skills book is pretty much exactly what it says on the cover - the basics of sewing and garment construction techniques. It covers how to read a pattern, how sewing machines work, the preferred methods for pressing seams, and the specific ways different pieces of a garment should be attached to get the best results.
I was actually surprised by this book, I haven’t seen many introductory sewing guides that cover the different techniques used to attach different styles of sleeve, or that include diagrams of the way the thread moves inside a sewing machine. Everything is laid out in a simple, easy-to-follow way, and the only critique I really have is that the explanations of the hand stitches it covers are a bit hard to follow.
Honestly, when I picked this book up at Joann’s I was not expecting it to be as useful as it turned out to be. I figured it was just going to be another of the same old beginner’s guides, more “here are five different kinds of hand stitches and a section reminding you which parts of the sewing machine you actually have to pay attention to” than the practical “okay, here’s what you’re gonna need to know, and this stuff is really handy too” it gave me. Seriously though, the sections about how to attach different parts of a garment properly are one of the most helpful things I’ve seen in a sewing book.
Knowing how to properly sew on a set-in sleeve (a sleeve where you sew a tube to a circular hole, instead of sewing on the sleeve before you sew up the side seam of the garment), how to sew an inseam, or how to attach different types of collars is way more useful for people who want to sew their own clothing than just knowing what a sewing machine is and how many hand stitches you can fit in a chapter before it gets ridiculous.
I’d recommend this book to Cosplayers, beginners and veterans alike. it doesn’t teach you how to make patterns from scratch, but it does teach you how to get the best results you can from pre-made patterns. And no matter how experienced you are, it’s always good to know the techniques that will get you the results you want. I paid probably $12 for this book, because I had a coupon, but according to the price tag it retails for ~$17.
Tl;dr: I recommend this book. I’ve reviewed a bunch of beginner’s sewing books on this blog, and this one covers some really useful practical things I haven’t seen in other books yet. Beginners will get a lot of great advice out of it, and even experienced Cosplayers will probably learn something new - I know I did.
The Book of Cosplay Sewing, by Svetlana Quindt aka Kamui Cosplay
A quick and easy introduction to the world of Cosplay sewing, for Cosplayers by a Cosplayer. Svetlana Quindt is well known in the Cosplay community for her impressive costumes and her youtube tutorials, and her book on basic Cosplay sewing is a hands-on introduction to making your first costume. Though it would definitely be helpful to have a more comprehensive introductory sewing book on hand for reference, which Quindt herself recommends in the first chapter. (I’d personally recommend this one, this one, or this one. Google and YouTube will probably be your friends).
This book is not written as a teach-all, but as a quick way to get you started on the path to making your own Cosplay as quickly as possible. Less of an “all you need to know” type book, and more of an “it’s 4am, the convention is tomorrow, and you still need gloves” kind of book. It skips most of the stuff covered in more traditional beginners sewing books, and goes right to the “okay, you know what thread is and how to turn on your sewing machine, time to make shit” part. Which is honestly preferable to me, I learn better with my hands than by reading.
I tried one of the easier tutorials included in the book, making a glove from scratch with the ‘trace your hand’ method of pattern drafting. Since the tutorial is designed for stretchy fabric, like spandex (lycra), I used some leftover 4-way stretch fabric from a recent costume.
I think it came out relatively well, all things considered. I’ve never made a glove before, much less from scratch, and I could actually get my hand in it and everything! It’s not perfect of course, there are definitely things I should change before I try to use this pattern for an actual costume, but it’s not bad for a first attempt.
I will say that Quindt seems to assume that everyone reading this book will have access to some fancy equipment, like a Serger (the kind of sewing machine used to do the kinds of seams you see in commercial clothing, like t-shirts), and her explanations for how to do the more complicated stuff, like the dress tutorial, would likely be confusing to anyone who hasn’t had much experience putting garments together, so bear that in mind if you think that would be a problem for you. I should also note that the text in the pdf of the ebook version is kinda small, so if you have trouble with tiny text that’s definitely something to be aware of.
Quindt’s methods of fitting and customizing patterns are definitely handy to know, especially for Cosplay purposes. Knowing how to fit a costume to yourself is one of the most important aspects of learning to make your own costumes, and this book gives a pretty easy example of how to do it. And I liked the demonstration of the ‘cover yourself in tape’ method of custom pattern design, even though the instructions for putting together the actual boot cover were a bit hard to follow in some places. Some of that is wording, it’s hard to explain sewing with words, but some of it was just that it wasn’t explained in a way I could visualize.
The book is available as an ebook (~$5) and as a paperback (~$20), so it’s not particularly expensive (I got the ebook), and it covers most of the important things you’ll encounter when trying to sew a costume, even if it is a bit hard to follow in some places.
Tl;dr: All in all, not a bad introduction to the world of Cosplay. I’d definitely recommend getting other books to go with this one (see links above), if you decide to get it, but this book provides a decent view of what it looks like to actually put together a real Cosplay costume. It acts as a way to dip your toes into things before you jump in the deep end, so to speak. Definitely get other books to go with it though, both to get a better foundation in sewing and to help you better use and understand this book itself.
I’d give this book a 6/10, it’s a good intro to what it looks like to make a Cosplay, but needs supplementary material.
