Weekend Review: Building Patterns

 

Building Patterns / Suzy Furrer 
Mount Joy, PA: Landauer, c2025.
280 p.

Suzy Furrer's new book on patternmaking is a new and revised edition of the book she has used in her Apparel Arts sewing school for a long time -- previously only available in ebook form from her directly. I was delighted to see that she has revised and published it to be more widely available. Back when Craftsy was new and cool, I took all of her patternmaking classes (except for the pants one). I really love her precision and teaching style. 

So I was eager to get my hands on this book. She states that it is a textbook, made to lead people through the very beginnings of patternmaking all the way into making a garment. To that end, each chapter has learning objectives at the beginning and a quiz at the end to go over the information. So I can see that this book can be (and is) used as a textbook alongside classes, with all the detailed math and diagrams involved. 

However, she also says that this is a book for the dedicated home sewer who wants to up their skills. And I think that if you are serious about patternmaking, and are an experienced sewist already, this book can be invaluable. It is very precise, very focused on math and geometry and rules of design. If you are meh about simple boxy beginner design and prefer to learn industry expectations and detailed patternmaking from first outline to completed and ready for production, this is definitely for you. It mainly focuses on women's patterns, with a short section talking about men's design.

It will take a lot of commitment from a home sewist who is working through this alone, though. The math felt a bit overwhelming at first glance, even for me, and I like math. So make sure you have time and mental space to really focus on it, and take it small step by small step, and it will click. If you have access to her Craftsy classes, or ones that she offers at her Apparel Arts Production website, it may help to follow along. In any case, this is an extremely thorough, true textbook for patternmaking, so if this is an area of interest for you, you must check it out.