Spotted: Wedding dresses and Couleurs françaises

I got my sewing machine back yesterday! And of course I didn’t need it for the project I worked on today… Here are the covers of two new french books I saw in the bookstore on Friday.

This is a book by Teresa Gilewska, author of the series about pattern making of which I showed the first two volumes last week. I found it funny that she has another book out just when I buy her first ones. Sadly all books were packed so I couldn’t check the inside, but it’s about making wedding dresses, and I guess you have all the steps from making the pattern to sewing the actual garment.

This second book is the French translation of a japanese book: フランス色の布で作るバッグと小物. It is inspired by french fabrics and is about bags, accessories (I think I remember seeing a hat) and small objects for the home. I’m not looking for that kind of projects, but I think that in this style it’s probably an interesting book. It’s separated in different sections, each related to a type of fabric: toile de Jouy, fabrics from Lyon city, florals from Paris (and I’m probably forgetting some). There seems to be some description of each fabric style, which I find nice. There are also two pages at the end of the book talking about two fabrics museums in France. I only remember the Toile de Jouy museum in Jouy en Josas, which I’d like to go visit.

New toys!

We went shopping Sunday everyning and since I had some birthday money left, I decided to make myself some presents: sewing related books! ^_^ I was so happy to finally find a book about 50′s fashion in a bookstore!!

If you read this in English you probably can’t  read French, so let me describe the two books at the bottom: they’re flat pattern making books. The first part is about shirts (with details about sleeves and collars), skirts (with details about pockets) and linings. The second part is about transformations and talks about jackets, pants, raglan sleeves, kimono sleeves, hoods, capes, bustiers and overskirts. I like that the second book talks a little about grading (I wish it were a little more detailed, but it will give me some basis). I read very good reviews of those books online, I hope they’re as good as people say and they will help me with pattern making! Some of the pieces shown (to learn how to transform your basic pattern depending on what you want to do) are a little weird and too 80′s looking for my taste, but this book is not about making things exactly the same as shown, so I guess it should be okay.

And, we also got another new toy, which will be usefull to you readers: a printer-scanner combo! I’m so happy, I finally have another scanner (my family kept mine when I left for Japan)!! Which means no more crappy photos of the books I want to share with you! Once I finish with the pictures I’ve already taken, I can share real scans with you. Isn’t that great?