My family and Santa provided me with a few books under the tree today. Cool Couture by Kenneth D. King, so I can improve my sewing skills. I need to improve my piping if I'm going to attempt Victorian clothing, and I've never done a welt pocket and his instructions look good and doable. I also like his decorated tassle, which I've wanted to do for the end of a Tudor girdle.
Pattern Fitting with Confidence by Nancy Zieman. I can drape bodices decently now, but my skills on paper pattern adjustments for modern &retro clothes are basic. I learned her shift & pivot pattern adjusting method from a small article from an old Threads book of collected articles. But this book expands that basic info on fitting, including fitting for us plus sized folks. It was the pants adjustments that sold me, although I will find out how well it works in practice soon enough. I've also got Fitting for Real People for other fitting help, it's just the cut & slash method they use that confuses me. And the beautiful Santa gift was the Italian renaissance paintings book Sunny recommended, with my heartfelt thanks. Virtue & Beauty from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Oh my what great images, many of which I've not seen before (and also didn't know to look). Many are in black and white, but the ones in color are large, and a few are closeup details, which just made this a wonderful book to look through. I can't wait to read and learn from it. Thanks again Sunny for the suggestion. I've also received a few amazon gift cards, so I'm trying to figure out what to get next. But most likely they will be embroidery & illumination books, unless I pre-order one of the costume books coming. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, if you celebrate it, or at least a great holiday season. Kimiko Smallhttp://www.kimiko1.com "Be the change you want to see in the world." ~ Ghandi The Tudor Lady's Wardrobe pattern http://www.margospatterns.com/ _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
