Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book: A Modern Guide to Sewing Fabulous Vintage Styles (Gertie's Sewing)

Love the patterns and dress detailed and easy to understand

If like me you are an avid sewer who enjoys making your own clothes I can surely recommend Gertie's books. This book her latest in her series is a great new addition with some fantastic new patterns and elements to add to your collection. I have made the Surplus dress and although I adore it now it took a good deal of altering due to the bodice pattern being off. I should note others have had the same issue and Gertie herself had responded recommending to go a size up for the bodice but when you are already using the largest size available on her patterns it becomes a bit more difficult. I wouldn't let you put this put you off the book providing you have some experience with altering and pattern adjustments but if you are new to sewing this may be a bit of a bigger issue.Overall the book is a great detailed and informative book and Gertie's style is as always approachable. I would buy this book again as I really do love the dresses on offer the majority of which are in a 50's style. I should also add the book offers a good bit of information on general clothing sewing, putting in zippers and other useful things as all of her books have done. So bottom line is I really love this book and hope the bodice pattern issue is sorted in the future for other's but for me I will just make my adjustments and carry on as you really get a good amount of patterns for the price.

Bought as a present for sewing bee friend. She loved the book and patterns by Gertie

I am teaching myself to sew and have an interest in vintage dresses so decided to buy this.Overall it's a good book with lots of patterns and instructions for making the dresses but as a beginner I found some parts tricky. I wish it had gone into more depth for some parts as I have to look up YouTube tutorials as I go through sometimes not being able to find an explanation to what I'm meant to be doing.It would have also been nice if it told you which dress parts could be found on which pattern sheets, there's so many lines it's not simple to spot the parts you want.Hopefully as I use it more it will become less frustrating.

I am a big fan of Gertie and I do believe this is a great book for handy tips on alterations and techniques. It's also a great source of inspiration and the concept is brilliant! However, there are issues with the drafting. On some of the patterns the sizing is wrong. There are no waist lines or bust points so alterations are tricky. I do understand that no two people are the same shape and inevitably you will always have to tweak a pattern. I have had to do some major redrafting with these patterns which is ok as I'm quite an experienced sewist but for a beginner you may struggle. There are a number of online forums and bloggers who have had little issues but also a number who have struggled. If you're prepared to experiment and are patient then go for it... you will learn a lot! Despite the negatives I still love reading Gertie's work, it is a lovely book and good dressmaking is about trial and error.

Beautiful book which I use over and over. The patterns are great and this is a brilliant manual to refer to all the techniques of making these beautiful dresses. I am a plus size so had to upsize the patterns but it hasn't deterred me at all. The graphics show in detail how to put together a dress and there are lots of wonderful idea's to help you 'build' your own designer dress too. Buy it, you won't be disappointed. I loved it so much I purchased a second one for my sister's Birthday. Well done Gertie!!

I ordered this last week and so far am very very pleased with it!There are pattern pieces and instructions for 23 dresses, BUT, every bodice and skirt is interchangeable which means the permutations are only limited by your imagination! The sleeves and cuffs are all interchangeable too. It's a real goldmine of pattern pieces.There is a lot of information too - sewing slippery or tricky fabrics, matching patterns, hemming, setting sleeves, pattern adjustments and on and on - it's pretty much everything Gertie has ever learnt about dresses all in one place.If you're new to sewing dresses it's invaluable, if you're not new to dresses you get lots of patterns, either way I would recommend it!

I can't give this book 5 stars as some of the sizes on the pattern sheets are off. I'm not the only person that has noticed this. So far I have only noticed the mistake on the midriff pattern piece so I don't know if there are others. I would advise very careful measuring. It would probably be best to make Muslims before you cut any nice fabric. Hopefully there will be a correction at some point