When an email popped into my inbox from the lovely Wendy Ward asking if I’d like to review her new book I was naturally going to say yes. I really rate Wendy’s meticulous approach to sewing and she has somehow become the “angel on my shoulder” when I sew. Reminding me to take my time and do things properly, and it will pay dividends. I can hear her tutting when I don’t use pins, and the warm glow of approval when I take the time to baste. (All totally imagined of course, but then I’m a bit nuts like that!) So of course I’d be ready to devour any instructional content Wendy has to offer, and let’s face it, help promote Wendy’s latest venture because she’s a pal. I’ll make no bones about that. LOVE her.
But almost as soon as I’d said “yes” in my head, that voice cautioned me. (I talk to myself alot. Nuts you see.) ” Hang on a minute P. Are you really the right person to offer your readers a relevant and impartial review of this book?” The answer to that my friends was a resounding no. A Beginner’s Guide to Skirts is exactly that. It’s a skirt making guide for beginners. Well I am neither a beginner, nor do I wear skirts. You all know that. So a review from me, proudly modelling a skirt I’d made from the book, to my mind, wouldn’t have served you or Wendy. I wouldn’t be viewing the book as a beginner and I wouldn’t be making something that I would truthfully wear; and you would all know that in a heartbeat….so let’s be real…
So what to do then? Well…..I did what I always do of course….turned a relatively simple request into a mammoth undertaking and created a whole bunch of extra work for myself in the process, ha ha! (But much more fun was had and much more was learnt in the process so it’s all for the good!) To my mind, a truly useful and authentic review of this book, would have to come from it’s target audience. Beginner sewers. So I ran an idea by Wendy. How about I find a beginner (who wears skirts!), get THEM to make a skirt from the book, observe the process, interview them about their experience and report back to you guys with THEIR review of the book! Bam! To me (and thankfully to Wendy) that sounded like the perfect review. Impartial (they don’t know Wendy) and relevant (because they would be a beginner who wears skirts!), and something a little different to a standard book review, and therefore, more fun! Little did I know that it would also equal a ton more time, work and planning to pull off. Largely because, when I asked around the “school Mums” if anyone would be interested in doing this with me; I ended up with not one….but five beginner sewers, all keen to have a go!! Whaaaaaaat! So now, now I was going to need a venue. Because we’re not all going to fit into my little Shedquarters. (This is looking suspiciously like a skirt workshop to me. ) Gah! What have I done! No matter, because it just so happens that a lovely little sewing emporium has opened up recently in my local town….
Housed in a lovely old building on the historic waterfront of Burnham on Crouch, it’s owned and run by the gorgeous Lorraine Robinson, with help from her hubby (who also services and repairs machines! I know, right on my doorstep! How lucky?!!) And she just happens to have a workshop space at the back of the building. Which she very kindly let us use for our skirt making event. She was an absolute gem of a host so this is an opportunity to shout out and say a very public thank you to her. Mwah! (Lorraine is in the process of setting up her Creative Lady shop online too so watch this space for deets on that. And we DID touch on the idea of my running some workshops there in the new year. So who knows…Eeeep!) Aaaaanyway, I digress. Where was I? Ah….yes….I had managed to turn a simple book review into an epic workshop. And having secured a space to work in….the next hurdle was wrangling 5 busy working Mum’s down to one date when they would all be available. Pffft! That was fun, ha ha! But we got there. The date was set. (Doodle was a godsend people!) We had one day, to get 5 skirts made. 5 beginners ranging from complete novice (never touched a sewing machine) to some machine, but little or no dressmaking experience. Can we do this, just by following the instructions from Wendy’s book??
But first…Meet “the ladies”…
Tracey
Experience Level: “Absolutely no experience with using a machine before. (They wouldn’t let me near one at school! Needle and thread making hand puppets was as good as I got!) This is the first time I have EVER used a machine. Sewing virgin….that’s me!!”
Sarah
Experience Level: ” I have used a sewing machine for a mixed bag of crafts. Children’s costumes, patchwork quilts, bunting etc. Exploratory projects that have allowed me to play and discover as I go. Dressmaking experience was non existent . Never used a pattern or made anything to fit.”
Katherine
Experience Level: “I started to sew on a whim about 18 months ago and have since made clothes for the kids from PDF patterns. Prior to that I was hopeless in needlework at Secondary School. I’ve made dresses and pull on trousers for kids. No zips though!”
Aikta
Experience Level: ” Very minimal. A bit at school and then a couple of home projects (cushion covers) a couple of years ago. In terms of dressmaking, none. This was a first for me!”
Amanda
Experience Level: “Not used a sewing machine since secondary school. (No need to calculate the years….a long time will suffice!). Never made any clothes before.”
So…those are my ladies. All willing and excited guinea pigs. Now, about this book that they are testing out…let’s start with the patterns. They come on 3 large pattern sheets, printed on both sides. They are multi sized patterns, nested and overlapped and designed to be traced off. Coloured lines help distinguish each pattern. Pieces like waistbands and pockets can be used on several different skirts. Each skirt will also have different length options. Without exception, all of my ladies balked at the thought of this process. And I for one don’t blame them. This is my least favourite format for patterns and I have experience in tracing patterns. So for a beginner I can see how daunting this can look. But when you have this number of patterns packed into one book, (8 patterns for not much more than the price you would pay for one paper pattern) practically and logistically,there has to be a pay off, and this is it. The truth is, it looks daunting. But the reality is less so. It’s a faff yes. But it’s actually quite straightforward. Find your pattern piece(s). Trace around it(them) carefully. You just need to gird your loins a bit to dive in and get it done (a little bit of squinting and some concentration may be involved). But you do have the added bonus of having the original sheets and ALL the patterns intact. So any mistakes in cutting/measuring or changes in size/making for others etc you can go back to the original pattern sheet and trace off a new pattern…..
Having said all that and in the interests of full disclosure, this is one area where we deviated. With one day to get all this done, having 5 people trace off their patterns from one set of sheets would’ve been a logistical nightmare and taken a huge chunk of sewing time out of our already tight schedule. It would have been impossible frankly. So Wendy kindly provided me with digital files for the skirts my ladies had chosen to make, and I gave myself a crash course in tiling full size patterns for print in Illustrator the night before. (Yeah, apparently I like to make work for myself! But hey, I have a new skill now! )….
I figured we could get the patterns assembled quicker if I tiled and printed off an individual pattern for each of my ladies. Rather than having four of them twiddling their thumbs waiting for the other to finish tracing from the single set of pattern sheets we had to work with.
So onto the book itself…..”Learn how to make 24 different skirts from 8 basic shapes”. So that’s 8 different skirt patterns with variations in length and details like pleats, gathers, pockets, waistband finishes, hem finishes and different types of fastenings and finishing techniques. All of which combine to give you the 24 options. The projects ascend in order of difficulty, with the recommendation that you start with the easiest (a pull on jersey pencil skirt) and work your way through each project, learning additional and increasingly more complex techniques as you go. That, is excellent advice. Follow THAT advice and all will be well. That advice is the Wendy Angel steering you sure and true. Or you could do what my ladies did, ignore that advice, and jump in at the deep end with zips, back vents, pleats gathers and pockets, ha ha! Now the “Portia Devil” in me is also an enthusiastic advocate of that approach too. Because whichever approach you take, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you are doing it; and there are things to be learned either way. It really just comes down to how tough you want those lessons to be and how willing you are to accept mistakes along the way….
Follow Wendy’s advice and this book will hold your hand starting with the simplest project and working from there. Dive straight in to a more complicated make, and you may have missed some of the foundations (and confidence building) that Wendy has carefully laid out in the earlier projects. It all depends on your personality. Slow and steady. Or dive in and rectify/learn from your mistakes as you go. I have a split sewing personality and have one foot in both camps, depending on the day of the week, what colour my socks are, and where the sun sits in the sky <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/72x72/1f609.png" alt="