Kim and I went shopping today and our first stop was Sarasavi’s Bookshop in Nugegoda. They’re the biggest bookshop in Colombo, bookshop being a store for stationery supplies (as opposed to bookstores, which are for fiction and non-fiction books).
Luckily, I found a set of French curves (yay!) and a book on the block method of pattern making that looks rather hopeful. It does only basic blocks for tops and skirts for women, nothing else. But hey, it’s something, so even though it was overpriced at Rs.1350 (about $13.50 US), I got it. With the French curves and a ruler. Eh. You take what you can get.
I also learned – I think – what people here mean by pattern books that all the dressmakers and such use when they sew clothes.
You know the McCall’s and Simplicity and Vogue books in the fabric stores in North America? The ones that have the pictures of the finished garment on them along with sizes, fabric required for various widths and that sort of thing? Those were for sale at Sarasavi as well in the same section as the block method.
And that, my dear friends, is what I think they mean by pattern books.
Um, yeah, dumb question here. Exactly *how* do they manage to use that to make clothing and get it to turn out right? Answer? That’s probably why so many people I know have had so many dismal failures. It’s probably also why everyone I know who has success at a dressmakers takes an existing garment in to a dressmakers and has them make a copy of that garment with new fabric. It’s the only way things get done halfways properly here. Or so I’m told.
And now are you beginning to understand why I would rather sew my own? Yeesh!
