DIY Couture: A Review

A few weeks ago I received this awesome book to look over and review. About a year ago I wrote about the Burdastyle sewing guide, and while I love both of these books, the DIY Couture book is a little bit more up my unorganized sewing alley. 🙂 Obviously I love sewing clothes, (ie: This flower dress, this t-shirt dress, and this holiday dress.) but I’m not that great at following patterns. I love to buy clothes from thrift stores and embellish/fit them– the DIY Couture book is for my type of sewess. 🙂

The book does have a nice introduction with sewing basics, but it doesn’t take up too many pages with boring explanations. (Thank goodness.)

The book has a few basic clothing shapes and it bases all of the things you can make in the book off of these simple wardrobe pieces. There’s a simple skirt, shirt, hoodie, cloak, dress (+ more)– and the book shows you how to manipulate the pattern to fit your style. (I use the word “pattern” very loosely here.) I also love the different style names in the book as well. My favorite styles are “The American Road Trip Collection,” “The Monochrome Art Collection,” “The Coffee Classic Collection,” and “The Safari Prep Collection.” So clever. 🙂

Instead of giving tricky patterns to use, the book shows the general shapes of fabric that you’ll need to make whatever you want to make. This is what I’ve always done anyways with my sewing, (Much to the distress of my mother.) so it’s really nice to see a book giving good directions on how to make loose patterns.

Another really cool thing the book demonstrates is how to use your favorite pair of jeans or your favorite shirt and make another piece of clothing that fits like your well-loved item. I had never thought of this, so it was really eye-opening and exciting for me. I think I’m going to start with a cool pair of shorts. 🙂

Just awesome. If you’re interested, you can find the book here on Amazon. If you’re a sewing dabbler, this is the book for you. (*Ahem, me.) 🙂

Disclosure: I received this book to review from Laurence King Publishing— I was not paid in any way to say these things, all opinions are mine. 🙂