Book (sort of) review

In a comment on yesterday’s post on the moulage Lyndle asked for information on the drafting book by Suzy Furrer. As it might interest more people I thought I’d answer it in a separate post.

I ordered the book from Apparel Arts directly. This is the school founded by Suzy Furrer where you can take all sorts of courses on drafting, draping etc. As for most of you, taking courses there is impossible for me.

On their site there is a link to their store where you can buy the book. Clicking on the book option immediately brought me a Paypal window to pay. To me that was a bit “direct”. It would be nicer to get some information first on the contents of the book, show shipping details perhaps instead of directly waving the invoice to you. It’s probably meant for their on-site students to buy the book easily and need it for their classes anyhow. On Amazon you can find a preview of the table of contents. But don’t buy it there! Right now it’s only offered at a price about 4 (four!) times the price you pay at Apparel arts directly.

The price of the book is $55, which is reasonable for this kind of book in my opinion. Shipping to Europe was another $24 and it was shipped the same day I ordered it and arrived within 10 days. The last is obviously depending on postal services and time to get through customs.

The reason I bought the book was to have the instructions in a written format too. The videos are wonderful and Suzy will give the little extra tips and tricks in the Craftsy courses, but once you know about a technique I don’t want to watch a whole video again doing it step by step, clicking through it just to find the thing you are looking for. And: in a book you can add (sticky) notes for things you want to try or remember. That’’s me, I love books (the real paper ones!). I know about Craftsy’s possibilties on making notes while you are watching. It’s not the same as taking your book, browsing, finding your notes, ideas.

Apart from the logistics of getting the book it’s of course interesting to know what the content is like. It has a good table of contents and a useless index. Most of the course material that is covered in the Craftsy courses is in it (as far as I can see, I don’t have the skirts and trousers class and not watched all courses to the end yet) and there’s a bit extra on some topics. Drafting a raglan sleeve, decorative sleeves, special shaped sleeve, drafting pockets, combining pricess seam and darts are a few examples.

The style of writing is very much as the Craftsy courses are: concise and to the point. To give you an idea of the way the instructions are written (clear as mud without the context and the line drawing, I don’t want to infringe on copyright):

This sort of instructions might look intimidating, but really are not that difficult and can be followed easily. If you want to have a go at pattern drafting (and I know that’s not everyones cup of tea) consider this book or the Craftsy class.