Dressmaking: The Easy Guide

Create bespoke garments that fit and flatter!

Awarded 'Best Sewing Book' at the Creative Book Awards, 2024.

In this comprehensive and informative book, Helen Rhiannon explains how to create beautiful, customised dresses for every shape and size. Choose the exact size that fits and flatters you from a bespoke sizing chart that considers differences in body size across bust, waist, and hips.

Trace off your pattern pieces, then create a sample (toile) in calico, which you can adapt to create the dress of your dreams in your own choice of fabulous fabric.

There are four style options each for sleeves and necklines, including a flared sleeve, a capped sleeve, a sweetheart neckline, or a boatneck, and five skirt options, including a fitted pencil-style skirt, a zhuzhy circle skirt, and an A-line, with or without pleats.

You can also choose to add a sweet, classic Peter Pan collar or inseam pockets to your garment. Alternatively, you can even create a skirt as a separate garment simply by adding a waistband or facing.

The language of sewing and dressmaking is demystified at the beginning of the book, along with the equipment you need to get started.

Nothing is left unexplained, and stunning images of the finished dresses, on a mannequin and a model, are interspersed throughout the book to inspire your own finished pieces.

Extra copies of the full-size pattern sheets/pattern templates exclusive to Dressmaking: The Easy Guide by Helen Rhiannon are available here.