Sew Step by Step: Design, Make, and Mend

by D.K. Publishing

Make, mend, and customize your own wardrobe with this highly photographic beginner's guide to machine sewing, featuring more than 200 step-by-step techniques. If you've never used a sewing machine before, or if you want to refresh your skills, Sew Step by Step will give you the essentials. Taking you through the basics, including the features of a sewing machine and the qualities of different fabrics, this simple handbook will soon have you making and mending your own clothes and home furnishings. Discover how to read patterns and adapt them to different body measurements, and find the right fabric for every project with an easy-to-use guide to different materials. Follow fully illustrated guides to more than 200 key techniques, including how to insert collars, sleeves, and pockets into garments, and how to customize them with delicate finishing touches, including appliqué and quilting. Easy to use and fully illustrated, Sew Step by Step gives you the confidence you need to design, create, and mend with your sewing machine.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sewing, Reference, Crafts

224 pages, Hardcover

Published February 6, 2020

About the author

Dorling Kindersley (DK) is a British multinational publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 62 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a consumer publishing company jointly owned by Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and Pearson PLC. Bertelsmann owns 53% of the company and Pearson owns 47%.

Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.

Source: Wikipedia.

Reviews

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a reference book, not a guide. It shows all the different things that exist, but does not instruct. People seldom learn to do a project or pick up a skill from memorizing the hundreds of different things, but rather they learn by applying, and this book is not that. It's not instructional for application, just a good reference, but most people who need to refer to the different parts related to sewing probably won't ever need this book as a reference.

[Peta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A handy reference book.

[Irene Adler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive learn to sew book but there wasn't really anything new.

It has a section on body measuring, which is good, but it does not cover fitting a pattern using the measurements - sure, that's not beginner level sewing, but it feels like half a sentence. And, yes, you can use the skills in this book to personalise, upcycle and repurpose clothes but there are no examples to inspire you.

If you don't know how to sew, this is for you. But if you already have a basic sewing instruction book and you have developing skills there's not that much additional information here for you.

[Nadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5
This does not feel like a book that a beginner would pick up to learn to sew. After introducing the reading to sewing equipment, it goes head first into sewing techniques using words we haven’t been introduced to yet so the book ends up feeling more like an encyclopaedia of techniques that we can review once we have a base foundation of sewing and know what the words mean, than a book to learn to “sew step by step”. I picked it up from the library shelf without looking into the best book for beginner sewists. The visuals are nice though, and relatively easy to follow. The book also doesn’t feel too cluttered and it does flow well from topic to topic.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Íve only skimmed through this but this feels like the go-to reference that I could totally come back to when I do want to a get into sewing things. Has all the sections that I would need, lots of photos, and lays out the info that I wouldn’t know to look for

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for a beginner tutorial book and this is not one.

[Cristina Mendoza · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a nice book when you are a beginner that's hasn't taken any classes but just looked at YouTube videos and would like to know more about the techniques an names they use, I found it very useful! Specially the fabric part, I'm always lost about how to use the different types of fabrics.

[Rachel Vryhof · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good reference guide for garment sewing. You'd have to be very brave to consider using this as a step by step manual as a brand new sewist though. There are good photos and instructions for techniques, but no projects listed to help you master techniques in order of difficulty.

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, useful information for beginners with no experience at all. But nice to have for more experienced sewists too. Every technique is well explained, and the photos are excellent, making it all very easy to understand/

[Sydney Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference.

[Amber Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good guide to sewing, showed sewing techniques in nice clear photographs. I'm still learning/teaching myself a number of things about sewing!

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for someone with sewing experience. However, the design/layout of the book made it harder to use

[SassieMolassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was very informative and quite comprehensive.

[olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

hell yeah i’m learnin to sew