Gertie's New Fashion Sketchbook
A practical drawing-and-planning workbook for home sewists who want to design their own garments on paper before cutting fabric.
What It's About
This is a workbook rather than a book to read straight through. It is built around pages you fill in with sketches, garment ideas, and notes about fabric, fit, and construction. The author's sewing-blog background suggests an emphasis on making clothes you will actually wear, and an assumption that the reader already sews a little and wants a clearer way to plan.
Expect a hands-on experience. The pages invite pencil work rather than long passages of text, so the reading time is short and the working time is long. Instructional prose appears in brief doses, mostly to frame the exercises and suggest how to move from a rough sketch to something you can sew. Because the format is open-ended, your results depend heavily on how much you put in.
I am working from the title page and general knowledge of this series rather than a detailed inventory of every page, so treat specifics as approximate. If you want a fuller account of the exercises, check a recent preview or the table of contents before buying.
Read this if you…
- sew at home and want to plan garments before cutting fabric
- want a low-pressure way to start sketching clothes
- like hands-on workbooks you can fill in over months
Skip it if you…
- want a comprehensive guide to fashion illustration or pattern drafting
- prefer reading a finished book with a narrative or argument
Key Ideas
- 1
Sketching as a way to plan clothes
Drawing a garment before cutting makes proportions, seams, and style choices visible early, when changes are cheap. A sketchbook like this treats the drawing as a working tool rather than an art exercise, so rough lines and quick notes count. Readers who find fashion illustration intimidating may find the emphasis on function over polish reassuring.
- 2
Figure templates as a starting point
Pre-drawn body outlines let you skip the hardest part of fashion illustration and focus on design decisions. Sketchbooks of this type often rely on them, which makes it easy to try many variations quickly. The advantage is speed; the trade-off is that a generic figure may not match your own shape, so you will need to adjust.
- 3
Notes that connect design to making
Attractive sketches fail when fabric, fit, or construction is ignored. Pages that prompt notes about materials and sewing steps help bridge the gap between a drawing and a garment you can finish. How deeply this book handles that bridge is worth confirming in a preview before you buy.
- 4
Designing around your own wardrobe
The most useful designs often come from knowing what you already wear and what fits well. A planning workbook encourages you to look at existing clothes and fill gaps deliberately rather than chase trends. This idea may change how you shop even if you never draw a finished pattern.
Limitations
Because this is a sketchbook, it is not a full course in fashion design, technical drawing, or pattern making, and readers expecting detailed instruction should look elsewhere. Its value depends on use; people who only flip through it will get little from it. Some readers of similar workbooks find that templated pages suit confident beginners more than complete novices who need step-by-step teaching. Without checking a current preview, I cannot confirm how up to date its sewing advice is.
Questions Readers Ask
- Do I need drawing skills to use this sketchbook?
- No. The workbook seems aimed at people who want to plan clothes rather than produce polished illustrations. Rough lines, simple figures, and quick notes are the working style it appears to encourage. If you can hold a pencil and want to see a garment before you sew it, the format should be workable. Expect to practice a little before the sketches feel natural.
- How does it compare with a traditional fashion design book?
- A traditional fashion design book usually teaches principles and techniques through explanation and examples. This sketchbook is more of a tool: you do the work in its pages. If you want theory, pair it with a guide to flat sketching or pattern drafting. If you want a place to start designing your own clothes, the sketchbook format is the more direct route.
- Published
- 2015
- ISBN
- 9781617691737
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Crafts & Hobbies
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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