> Perhaps for some of us who have done this for awhile, but I see this as a > good book for beginners to learn from as well.
First, let me say that I am thoroughly enjoying my copy of the book. But, I would never put it in the hands of a beginner. Well, let me be careful, that would be based on what you mean by a beginner. If it is a competent costumer who has not worked in the Tudor period, I would have no problem at all. However, If you are talking about a competent sewer, who has never worked in period costuming (or someone who has never done much sewing at all), then this book would be a problem for them. There are many assumptions about technique and terminology that would completely lose a non-costumer. Things like "grown-in" collars and such. More importantly, there is no clear indication of what patterns go with what instructions and with what pictures of actual clothing. Experienced costumers can sort it out, but beginners would be absolutely lost. For example, there is a picture of a man wearing a jerkin over a doublet and hose that are slashed at the knee. The jerkin has a collar, but the jerkin pattern does not. Also, the jerkin has puffed sleeve caps, which the pattern also lacks. The doublet pattern is a little easier to connect with the image. In both cases, you will need to figure out which instructions apply to what. And so on. The text does not even give hints as to which figure/diagram the instruction applies to. If I was going to hand a doublet/jerkin pattern to a beginner, it would probably be Simplicity 5574. The pattern is identical to what is in the Tudor Tailer (and the Janet Arnold) but with most of the guess work (and therefore some of the fit) taken out. In fact, out of curiosity, I took the doublet I cut from the TT and laid it on top of my copy of 5574 (which was real fun digging out of my boxes, found lots of other neat stuff I had forgotton was in there). Anyway, they lined up almost exactly. Aoghann _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
