-----Original Message----- **No relations here, but my comments below** All this oooing and ahhhing over this book has me stumped. I find it a mediocre affair. Not awful or anything, but certainly not great.
**I find it clear with good diagrams and lots of color pictures** I find the patterns basic at best. Very unsophisticated. I could have drafted most of the men's stuff by looking at paintings. And the women's patterns can just about all be found in Janet Arnold [plus some of the men's] or Jean Hunnisette. **Maybe -you- can draft them, I can't. I own Hunnisette, Arnold, QEWU, Medieval Tailor's Assistant, and several others. I've been looking back and forth among them to finally understand what I want to make and how to go about it. I'm finding the Tudor Tailor much friendlier to a novice costumer.** I think if you can understand such patterns, you are to a point where you don't need instructions to put the things together. **I wish** And speaking of instructions, they are very uneven. You get complete pictorial directions for fitting men's hose [the best thing in the book....very very helpful!!!] but their instructions for making a ruff are: "Starch ruff using preferred method. Set pleats using curling tongs". Geee...thanks! **I have to admit to disappointment with the ruff instructions and I have discussed this with the author. I'm on the Tudor Tailor-specific Yahoo group, which has been also very informative.** Ok ok...some praise. Like the men's hose section, the headdress section is very inclusive and helpful for the most part. But, again, I find the Gable hood pictured not convincing at all. It stands away from the head too much and the crossed, striped pieces over the forehead look nothing like paintings. It's well worth having the book. But it's not my favorite by a long shot. **I'm thrilled with it. I preordered, and wasn't disappointed.** ------------------------------ The book does however, just cover that area of teaching that I needed it to cover, the "I'm curious and want to look right(er), but I don't really want to learn the skills to make it" personality that I occaisionally run across. I'll use it as a teaching tool.... **If we could get our group to look this good we'd be better than most of what I'm seeing out there.** Julie in San Diego (Melanie - I have mine and I'll share info) _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
