About eight years ago, I dug out my dusty broken-bobbin-hole Brother machine after many years of not sewing. I sewed for much of my teens and made almost all of my clothes in college, but after that I went in tiny spurts–partly because I was able to afford nicer fashion than what I had been sewing. I’ve always loved fashion and spoiling myself with clothes when I can.

Still, I could never get rid of that sewer’s itch every time I looked at a gorgeous piece of fashion: “how did they *do* that?” And all my sub-dreams of learning fashion design would rush to the surface.

[From a current exhibit here in Austin, I loved this enormous print by contemporary Argentine artist Nicola Costantino. Credit and the fascinating history behind this photograph, a self-portrait.]

So when my husband asked me to make him a vest–and he went into elaborate detail about what this vest would be, what shape of pockets, lining, fit, type of buttons–I took it as a challenge to make a pattern from scratch. The one vest pattern I could find at Jo-Ann’s was a horrible boxy McCall’s thing straight out of the 80s so that wouldn’t do. This was before Pattern Review, sewing blogs and the onslaught of vintage sewing mania so I didn’t have much to work with.

I googled “patternmaking” and the only things that came up were an expensive (to me) patternmaking textbook and Lutterloh. I decided to enroll in some college courses in fashion design but got sidetracked once I took the illustration courses, which I loved.

Long story short, it took me a few more years before I’d find a vintage pattern and make something of D’s dream vest.

I have a few patternmaking books now, which help me with details I want to add on to an existing pattern, but I’m itching to learn more. I like theoretical knowledge and am rarely satisfied with just learning techniques. And some patternmaking books just give you a long list of things to do–rather than teach you why you’re doing them. Over a year ago, I made some slopers from Elizabeth Allemong’s European Cut and she does have some little gems of “why you are doing this” teaching. Although the slopers are very basic and have no ease–at all–I had a few lightbulbs go on while working on them. Perhaps I’ll do a review of this book in another post.

After someone recommended it, I decided to order Winifred Aldrich’s Pattern Cutting for Women’s Tailored Jackets over the weekend. This might be a bit backwards as I don’t have her introductory book, but I’m really keen on making my own jacket block, perhaps this winter, or modifying my silk jacket draft to do other things. Does anyone have this book and what can you say about its drafts?

I’ll be taking it with me as holiday reading next week. Yes, I’m a geek who reads stuff like horticulture manuals in bed. Don’t worry, I’ve got poetry going with me, too.