DIY Friday/Book Club: Little Green Dresses

Hello there lovelies,

I actually did have another wicked DIY tutorial cooked up for you this week, but with everything going on I didn't have time to bring the idea to fruition. Rest assured, I'll have it ready for you next week! In the meantime, here's another cool book for our blogging book club. One with a DIY edge, in the theme for DIY Friday - Little Green Dresses.

I bought this book as a birthday present to myself last year, along with a few style photography books & Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. I was browsing The Book Depository looking for a book to inspire me to get back into DIY, and this little number with it's cute, stylish cover caught my eye. I waited eagerly for it to arrive, and I wasn't disappointed when it did. Little Green Dresses is a gorgeously styled sewing book, and it is full of inspiration & ideas, which I think would be beneficial for both beginning & more experienced sewing.

Little Green Dresses contains six sections: two sections of sewing info, and then project instructions for tops, skirts, dresses and bottoms & rompers. The first info section is all about sewing techniques, and covers everything from fabric types to seams & hems, to interfacing, adding darts & inserting zippers. The second info section is about using & creating your own patterns, and it covers cutting patterns, taking your own measurements, style lines & altering patterns, as well as including detailed instructions for drafting your own "master" pattern. The project sections include instructions for refashioning of certain items, projects requiring simple pattern-making skills and more complex projects based on altering your master pattern in particular ways.

I really loved the bright, clear & beautifully polished images throughout Little Green Dresses. Seeing a finished project photographed well & styled in the context of an actual outfit always gives me an idea of whether it is something I would wear once I finished it. I found that the instructional sections were written in a manner that was easy to understand, easy to follow, and interesting! I think it is often the nail in the coffin of DIY books that their instructions are written so dryly that they send me to sleep, so this was a nice change. I think that some of the project instructions may be a little hard to understand depending on how much experience you have sewing with patterns, but the included diagrams really helped me visualise how the pieces of each garment come together. All-in-all, I loved this Little Green Dresses to bits!

The only (maybe slightly negative) note that I would like to make is that I don't believe that the cover is 100% accurate in saying that the book contains "50 original patterns for repurposed dresses, tops, skirts & more". If you are thinking of purchasing, keep in mind that the book itself does not actually contain any patterns . What it does have is detailed diagrams & instructions for making your own patterns, and how to tweak a master pattern to make a range of different designs. This doesn't actually bother me. I think that Little Green Dresses is a fun & easy to understand lesson in drafting your own patterns & repurposing. I just want to drive home the point that it does not come with any premade patterns - if you're not looking to start drafting your own patterns then this is probably not the book for you.

The only question left for me is this: which of these projects should I attempt first?

Weigh in! Do you own Little Green Dresses? What did you think of it? And should I make the Ambiguous T Dress, or the Nip-Waist dress first?