Sewing Shirts with a Perfect Fit

Excellent!
This book is a perfect guide to achieve a fitted top, shirt, blouse.
It has easy to follow directions to make a shirt, but also gives you an idea of how to correct and resize a shirt that you like.

I've always been intrigued by draping, so it was a particular pleasure to have an advance copy of this book for review. It goes through each step of the process, making it quite clear and non-scary. I love the fact that it has real male and female bodies, fictional, but real life all the same and how to deal with certain real-life body shaping issues. Although this covers shirts, you can easily see how this method is applied to other items of clothing.

this is a great book for someone looking to get their shirts to fit properly when they sew. Step by step directions made it easy for me to understand the method and practice to get a shirt JUST Right, and I am only a beginning sewer.
Very happy I got a chance to read this informative book and I am sure you will not be disappointed.

I was very excited about reading this book. Fitted shirts are hard to make from a purchased paper pattern without significant pattern alterations to get that perfect fit. What I didn’t know about this book is that making a dress form of your body is essential to learning this process. A purchased dress form may give you basic dimensions but in order to do this “perfect fit” book justice, making a custom form is essential. For example, knowing the slope of your shoulders, your posture, the way your belly protrudes. You get the picture. It’s only when you know all these intricacies of your shape can you then cover it properly. The author does suggest that maybe at first you can use a sewing buddy to place the pieces directly on you and vise versa until you can make a dress form. However with all the details involved in this process I imagine you need a very patient and capable sewing friend to do this with.

The book gives very very detailed pictures of every step in the process to show you how to use fabric to drape on your dress form. This way you can see how each piece: yoke, front, back, armholes, sleeves, would hang on you. Then you can remove bunching or wrinkles from the fit by adjusting the fabric pattern you are creating. It’s complicated. The finished products from the projects shown are beautifully done. Each project has photos of every single step in the process. If you follow these steps, with practice I’m sure you can achieve a professional looking garment.

One idea that I will be trying is the idea of making an aluminum foil form. You wrap foil around your body, minding all your curves and then cut it up so it will lay flat. After that you can trace the foil pieces out on paper to make paper/fabric pattern pieces with it.

I will say that this author is very passionate and excited about this topic. It does bring an energy to the book that makes it easier to read. I am an advanced sewer and I had no problem understanding the theory of the book and the techniques involved. However I think a beginner sewer would probably feel a little intimidated by the process. One thing that I felt should have been discussed in more detail is the importance of ease, how much space should be left at different parts of the body and why.

Sewing Shirts with a Perfect Fit The Ultimate Guide to Fit, Style, and Construction from Collared and Cuffed to Blouses and Tunics by David Coffin is the definitive work on making shirts. There is so much information regarding fitting and draping. Mr. Coffin has created a working tutorial with a large range of possibilities with tons of ideas for style and specific features. Mr. Coffin has developed ideas for fitting which allow for customization. The photos are clear and concise. The directions are specific and awesome. If you have trouble finding the proper shirt for you and have the desire to create this is the book for you! There are shirt ideas in here that I hadn’t even thought of. Well done!

I would like to thank David Coffin, Quarto Publishing Group – Fair Winds Press Creative Publishing International and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

CAVEAT: The book promises that more detailed patterns are available from the publisher's website. Since I'm reviewing an advance copy, those digital extras aren't available yet. This review is based on the ebook without the digital extras.

I have only basic skills in sewing, though I'm hoping to improve. When I saw this book available for review, I was eager to request it so I can learn more about garment sewing.

Overall, I liked this book but didn't *love* it. It has introductory info on why the author prefers draping instead of sewing from a paper pattern and then goes into different shirt styles, fitting issues, etc. There are detailed lessons for several styles of shirt, and then at the end there are some projects.

PROS:
1) LOTS of photos.
2) I appreciate that the author's example garments are made with contrasting pieces of fabric (for example, the yoke is yellow, left sleeve red, right sleeve blue, and so on). This makes it immediately clear what is connecting to what. It really helped me picture the steps.
3) The patterns and techniques cover a range of sizes and body shapes. Unlike most pattern books, this one has patterns for men and women, too.
4) If you decide you don't like draping, there are instructions (in the supplemental digital material) for how to make a flat paper pattern using the author's techniques.
5) The draping techniques shown can be used for garments other than shirts, so if shirts aren't your thing, there's still useful info here.

CONS: The only con for me is the separation of pattern details and instructions. The basic construction explanation is on the first page of the projects section. The first page of each project also refers to you a PDF you can get with the digital materials for more details (sizing, etc.). Then the project pages in the book roughly explain what to do draping-wise and have a lot of pictures. I don't find this setup very helpful, because it means several sets of instructions to flip between. It's not convenient when it comes time to actually try to sew one of the projects. I would prefer one set with everything all in one place.

This is a nice technique book if you're looking to learn draping techniques, whether you're a beginner like me or already experienced sewing from typical paper patterns.

This is a must for anyone who does not fit a standard pattern size and is frustrated with it. These ideas are a foundation for a better understanding of how to make it fit better, without needing as much knowledge on the math and science behind the perfect fit because you can use patterns and clothes you already have rather than creating a master from scratch. The projects give you a real example to look at; with options to flatter most body styles. I’m petite with a large bust (36i) so no ready to wear will fit me well without tailoring or being in a knit fabric. This gives me the option to pull out my patterns and adjust them with more confidence as there’s a step by step guide to the easiest way to mock them up. I’ve been sewing for decades, but always stayed away from the highly detailed, fitted options and can now play with them.

#SewingShirtsWithAperfectFit #NetGalley

All about shirts. The book contains pattern and techniques to create from simple t-shirts to elegant shirts. The sizes available for the pattern are XXXS-XXXL which is helpful. Excellent book!

Clearly, I am not a good sewer and I wanted to know if I could be able to learn something from a sewing book as I feel like I don't want to. Fitted shirts are hard to sew and I would love to make one, therefore I was quite interested in this book.

Lots of pictures are included to illustrate every step of the work and I loved that as sewing is such a visual thing. Different patterns are explained and I feel like I could make a fitted shirt following the instructions.

Thank you Net Galley for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review. What a fantastic resource! This book takes on fitting from the angle of draping. As someone who sews, I was so excited to see this! The techniques described by the author are very clear. Pictures are very illustrative and clear as well. In addition, supplemental information is available for those who might want or need additional instruction. I will definitely be purchasing this book!

While I do not frequently sew, I found this book to be both helpful but at the same time too intense. This book would be great as an accompaniment to a video course. Though his instructions are very clear and there are many illustrations to demonstrate his text, I still felt a bit overwhelmed. I think this book would be helpful to those who are active with sewing garments. To the casual stitchers, this book might sail over their heads.

A different approach to fitting and making shirts. As a keen but not particularly skilled dressmaker, I was keen to read this book and am glad that I did. I think this is useful for the experienced sewist as we can all learn new things but more importantly, it has the right level of detail to be of use to someone new to the hobby. A book I shall return to and recommend.
Thank you to the publisher for this review copy.

For a person who makes there own clothing this book makes perfect sense, to those that are beginners it shows a much better, quicker and easier way of making shirts that really fit the way the wear/seamstress want it to.
The explanations and photos in this book are excellent and are very easy to follow, there is a full size pattern provided, but not your ordinary one which is explained.
I like this book, this is the way my mother and grandmother used to make my and their clothes - easy and simple made to fit not to measure.

This books provides guidance on how to modify shirts to gain a better fit. The method is based on draping, rather than how to cut patterns for better fit. As such it is very accessible to most sewers. It is a more intuitive approach and one based less on maths to get a result.

The actual process of fitting shirts set out in this books is somewhere between classical pattern drafting and draping. The starting point is an already cut pattern, this could be a commercial pattern, one taken from an existing garment or one you have drafted yourself. The process of how to fit is very well described and with lots of useful pictures. You are taken through four examples of shirt types and how to fit each one (basic shirt, loose shirt, fitted shirt, tight shirt)

The book also includes four sewing projects to extend the techniques taught; a shirt jacket, fitted dress shirt, wrapped shirt dress and a western shirt.

I found the book very well explained, detailed and easy to follow. I shall be looking forward to better fitting shirts in my handmade wardrobe very soon.

Additional information was supposed to be available on a given website however at the time of writing it was not, so I have not been able to review the supporting information in additional to that contained within the book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was very excited to receive a review copy of David Coffin’s “Sewing Shirts with Perfect Fit” for several reasons. Coffin is a go-to resource for sewing aficionados who have long benefited from his vast expertise in his contributions to Threads magazine. Second, I was lucky enough to buy a “perfect shirt” at a small boutique in Italy last summer, and I’ve been unable to find another shirt with a similar fit since, so I am looking forward to using Coffin’s drape to fit method to replicate that fit.

Coffin’s clear instructions, both "how-to" and “why” along with lots of photos and plenty of real world bodies to demonstrate make this a great resource for sewing for any body type.

The section on making a tin foil wrap based body form was a real bonus. Although I have a personal dress form, this was an excellent way to improve its fitting utility.

I’ve ordered the recommended Richcheck Gingham and Premium Broadcloth and look forward to a couple of long weekends of fitting fun.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I have been wanting to learn how to sew clothes that fit me exactly the way I want them to for quite some time, and as its title states, this book serves as an excellent resource for sewing shirts with a perfect fit. I am excited about referring to this book as I practice and learn more about sewing clothes.

This is a well designed sewing book. It has wonderful instructions and helpful photos. The ideas are interesting as well. The step-by-step instructions are extremely helpful. I recommend this book if you are looking for help when looking to find a way to find a perfect fit when sewing your own shirts. It could be the perfect help for you or you could find some inspiration.