There are so many books on sewing right now, literally hundreds, which can be overwhelming when you’re trying to figure out which are essential. Here, I’ve attempted to cover books I’ve found to be either inspiring or helpful. Some are classics, some are new, but all will help deepen your understanding of fabric, clothing and fashion, and make you a better sewer!

Vogue Sewing: The Sewing Bible. I pored over my mother’s 1970′s copy as a very young child, and find it extremely useful as an adult. It has everything from the brand names of synthetics and their fiber contents to how to take detailed measurements to alterations for different body types to couture tailoring techniques and how to do them. If I were to bring one sewing book to a desert island, this would be it.

Sandra Betzina’s Fast Fit is a great book to read if you’re doing advanced pattern alterations, such as large-bust alterations, protruding tummy, narrow shoulders…once you learn how to make a pattern fit you perfectly, you’ll never go back to ill-fitting clothes again!

The Art of Manipulating Fabric. This book is great for anyone who sews and wants to alter material to make it more textural and interesting. Appropriate for quilters, textile artists and garment sewers/fashion designers, the authors cover hundreds of techniques, many of which can be done on any sewing machine. All of the examples are done in white muslin so that you can see the effect without the complication of pattern or color.

Patternmaking for Fashion Design–this is the actual textbook used in many fashion design college programs. Thorough and comprehensive! Now it has a DVD enclosed, which will help demystify concepts like dart manipulation and other difficult-to-visualize techniques for making flat patterns.

Draping for Fashion Design, another design school textbook essential. This one covers draping, the on-the-dress-form technique of fashion design utilized by most designers, such as those on Project Runway.