Sewing Outdoor Gear

Category: Book

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Product Description

The tricky finishing details and specialized fabric requirements needed for most outerwear can scare off even experienced sewers, but as Sewing Outdoor Gear beautifully demonstrates, these garments needn't intimidate. Rochelle Harper, who has designed outerwear for several major manufacturers, carefully leads us step by step through all the basics of making jackets, coats, parkas, and pants from various fabrics, including nylon, polyester, microfiber, cotton, knits, and fleece. Excellent diagrams document features such as layering garments for Alpine skiing, high aerobic activities, and creative street wear. Harper's instructions are more general than project-specific, but they are so thorough and her designs so classy that even nonathletic types may want these clothes in their wardrobes. --Amy Handy

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Customer Reviews

Review by Karen Tiede, 2008-10-08

This is a wonderful book, from Taunton; how could it be less? Professional models against professional backgrounds; each part of a garment examined, discussed, presented.

What it is not, however, is about "gear." I wanted a book about sewing equipment; bags, backpacks, etc. I completely failed to pay attention to the reviews, the precis, and every other comment about the book, which never once mentioned what I think of as "gear." (The dictionary corrects my assumption. Oh well.)

Good book. Won't help you sew a backpack, except to the extent you can map a parka to a backpack.

Review by Jessica Stephens, 2006-05-22

This book is perfect for the home sewer who wants to sew functional outdoor wear that has all of the professional looking features found in store-bought garments. The author discusses ALL of your fabric options; although many of them I have not found in retail locatios, I found the information very interesting. The book is written from the standpoint of altering ready-made patterns, so if you expect this book to cover every step of the garment construction, you will be disappointed. The photos and illustrations are thorough, clear and abundant.This book de-mystified a lot of techniques I never even thought possible for the home sewer. However- this book is not for the faint-of-heart: the techniques can be labor-intensive, but to me the results are worth it. There are plenty of fashion and embellishment ideas in this book, but I mostly bought it for the technical information, which takes into account weather, wear stresses and movement. With this book I improved upon the standard hunting gear patterns I had been making for my husband, and you almost can't tell that they are not store bought. I would recommend this book to someone who has sewn several projects and is comfortable with the basic construction process, but ready to move on to more custom, functional and professional looking garments.