This list of my top “10 sewing books you can buy used without regrets” is based on a.) the books that have helped me hone my sewing skills, b.) the books that bring me inspiration to continue with my sewing projects, and c.) books that help keep my sewing projects organized.

And it may surprise you to find that I’ve included more than just my top 10 here. I didn’t want to leave anything out, so there will be a little extra in my description and my links.

Before I go on, I need to make my required disclaimer statement: As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how affiliate marketing works on my website, please go to the Privacy Policy page. Thank you!

Books to Help Me Hone My Sewing Skills

1. First on my list of my top 10 books is Sewing 101: a Beginners Guide to Sewing.

While the focus of this book isn’t on doll clothes (my specialty area), it teaches you how to use a sewing machine, including its parts and accessories, how to read and understand the back of a commercial sewing pattern, how to make simple garments like a skirt with an elastic waist, and how to make medium-difficulty garments like a vest with pockets and buttons.

It doesn’t go into detail on harder things like a lined shirt with a front placket, a collar, and collar stays.

So while Sewing 101 doesn’t have challenging projects for a more advanced sewist like myself, I bought it for the sewing machine tips — especially how to use the various feet and vocabulary terms related to reading the back of a pattern envelope. It also has a nice section of fabrics and pattern matching.

I do recommend Sewing 101 for the beginners out there who really just want to learn how to sew some of the more basic concepts, and I recommend it to anyone who just bought their first sewing machine. It’s a great book for both of those purposes.

Now that we’ve gotten my recommendation for the absolute beginners out of the way, let’s move on to something for every person who wants to improve their sewing skills…

2. Second on my list is Beginner Guide to Sewing: Garment Making for Nervous Newbies by Tova Opatrny, who goes by Professor Pincushion online.

If I’m a little rusty on a sewing concept, or if I really don’t know how to do something, I go straight to Professor Pincushion on YouTube. She has a huge library of tutorial videos, showing how to do everything from a simple hem to more complicated pleats and pintucks.

And while I don’t own her book, Beginner Guide to Sewing: Garment Making for Nervous Newbies, it’s on my wish list for Christmas this year, even though I’m not a beginner.

I’ve included her Beginner Guide to Sewing in my list of books that I’ve learned a lot from, just because I’ve learned so much from her YouTube channel!

Currently there are 7 used copies available on Amazon, but honestly, this is one book I’d gladly pay full price for. I’ve been following Professor Pincushion for more than ten years. Why wouldn’t I help support her channel by just buying Beginner guide to Sewing brand new?! For all the knowledge I’ve gained from her, the price of a book is the least I could do to repay her.

3. Third on my list of books I’ve learned a lot from is Little Quilts: All Through the House.

Look, I’m not half the quilter my mother-in-law is, but when I bought this book, back in the late 1990’s, it gave me hope that I could one day call myself a quilter.

I made quilted potholders, quilted Christmas stockings, wall-hanging quilts, and of course, quilted doll blankets. And while I’ve never quite mastered the art of quilting, I learned a TON from this book, which comes with all the patterns included at the back of the book, along with very clear instructions.

For anyone who’s wanting to learn how to quilt, Little Quilts: All Through the House is a great place to start!

4. Fourth on my list of books that have taught me a thing or two is Sewing Clothes for Barbie by Annabel Benilan.

Benilan’s book was going to go under the heading of books that inspired me because I didn’t really learn how to sew these outfits from Benilan. Her techniques are not new to me. They’re all relatively basic sewing skills.

But what this book provided was a series of patterns for Tall Barbie, Petite Barbie, and Curvy Barbie. These irregular Barbie patterns gave me a quick look at how my own regular Barbie patterns might be altered to fit the variations in Barbies that became common about ten years ago.

She also inspired a change in my doll photography. In Sewing Clothes for Barbie, Annabel Benilan photographs her Barbies next to a scooter in a city scene, on a dance floor with disco balls, and at a Metro entrance on one of the streets of Paris.

How did she do this? She used AI.

So while I’m not using AI to write my articles here on ChellyWood.com, when you see a doll pictured on a dance floor, like the images of Ideal Tammy below, I learned how to do that by following Annabel Benilan’s lead. I’m using AI to create beautiful pictures! I was truly inspired by Annabel Benilan’s doll photography in Sewing Clothes for Barbie.

Books That Have Inspired My Patterns

5. The fifth book in my list is one that all the BJD and Blythe fans out there will love: Dollybird!

This book opens backwards. That’s because these books are written in Japanese for a Japanese audience.

You’re probably thinking, “Okay, but I can’t read Japanese!” Right?

I could display a page from my copy of Dollybird, but it wouldn’t come close to giving you the kind of enthusiasm I had when my niece (who teaches English in Japan) sent me this book. So instead, I’m going to embed a video in which Dolly Insider reviews one of them… Here you go:

 

If you want to be inspired by even more issues, follow The Dolly Insider. Her channel has a lot of these Dollybird flip-through videos, which are SO inspiring for a doll clothes designer like myself!

When I first opened my copy of Dollybird, I was absolutely captivated! And for several months, I just wanted to make my own version of everything I saw in the pages of my edition!

Truthfully, you don’t have to be able to speak or read Japanese to gasp in amazement every time you turn the pages of this — well, in Japan I think it’s distributed more like a magazine than a book. My copy is Volume 34, so there are lots of them, but here in the US, they’re tricky to get your hands on.

Your best bet is to try eBay, if you’re wanting to buy one for your own sewing inspiration.

6. Next up is Sewing for Twentieth Century Dolls by Johana Gast Anderton.

I think one of you, my regular followers on ChellyWood.com, recommended this book to me, and I’m so glad you did! Whoever that was, thank you! I love Sewing for Twentieth Century Dolls! It’s fantabulous!

I bought the 1972 version of Sewing for Twentieth Century Dolls because I had just bought my Judy Littlechap doll, and although she’s shaped like Barbie, her body is significantly bigger and even bustier. So I bought this book with the hope that it would include tips for sewing doll clothes for Judy Littlechap.

It didn’t disappoint! The author includes hand drawn patterns for not just Judy Littlechap, but all of the members of the Littlechap family of dolls.

So if you’re looking for patterns to fit a rare or unusual 20th century doll, Sewing for Twentieth Century Dolls is a wonderful book to add to your collection. Some of the dolls that surprised me include the 18″ Judy Garland doll by Ideal, Betsy McCall dolls in various sizes, the Schoenhut dolls, Slidell (a 21″ German Bisque doll from about 1904), the 22″ Shirley Temple doll, and 20″ Chatty Cathy dolls, to name just a few.

7. Historic Costume in Pictures has been inspiring my doll clothes designs since I bought it in about 1993 or 1994.

This book’s copyright dates back to 1975, and it’s still as popular with fashion gurus today. If you want to learn about fashion in history, this is the best book I’ve ever found on the topic, which is why you can still buy it on Amazon as a POD book or in Kindle form.

I recommend just buying the paperback. Mine is so worn out, that the pages fall out! But they don’t have a hardcover version of Historic Costume in Picures. If they did, I would have updated mine to a hardcover a long time ago.

This book belongs under the “Inspiration” topic because it doesn’t contain any patterns at all. It’s just drawings of what people wore from ancient times to the 19th century. The very first images show Assyrian royalty and an Egyptian queen with two noblewomen.

And the cool thing is that it includes fashion history from many parts of the world, not just European fashion history. They show traditional clothing from Lebanon, Siberia, Japan, China… The list goes on and on.

When I designed the doll clothes for my Romeo and Juliet with Dolls stop-motion video, I used Historic Costume in Pictures as a jumping off point for my costume designs.

8. Fashions and Costumes from Godey’s Lady’s Book is great for making those historical dresses for your American Girl dolls!

You know how the American Girl dolls are sometimes designed to accompany historical stories from a given period in American history? Well this book, Fashions and Costumes from Godey’s Lady’s Book will give you lots of ideas about clothing from the 1800’s in particular.

Like Historic Costume in Pictures, it doesn’t offer any patterns, only ideas, but almost all of the images in Fashions and Costumes from Godey’s Lady’s Book are in color, which is very nice.

I use it to inspire embellishments like ruffles, ribbons, lace, bonnets, capes, shawls, and undergarments. So Fashions and Costumes from Godey’s Lady’s Book will help me turn a pattern for an ordinary day dress into something special by adding lace and ruffles with a riding cape, for example.

It’s an idea generator for my simplest patterns.

9. I can’t leave out my Barbie booklet collection!

I own quite a large collection of Barbie sales booklets, the little packets that came in the box with your new Barbie dolls, back in the early days of Barbie.

There are booklets for other dolls as well, and I own one for Tammy and the Littlechap Family, as well as Barbie.

Before I sit down to design a doll clothes pattern — even if it’s not for one of these vintage dolls — I sometimes gather ideas from my doll clothes fashion booklets.

They are surprisingly inexpensive and easy to come by on eBay. Granted, these little doll clothes booklets don’t give you any patterns, but if you’ve already taken my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course on the C&T Publishing website’s online learning platform, you have the fundamental know-how to turn one of my very basic doll clothes patterns into something different.

And doll fashion booklets can help you think up different ways to alter my patterns.

Books that Help Keep My Sewing Projects Organized

10. It probably won’t surprise you that I keep a sewing and craft journal.

It’s just a basic journal with a dotted matrix, so I can use the dots to help me draw out possible sewing patterns and other craft project sketches. Like a scrapbook, I even keep failed projects taped inside the pages of my sewing and craft journals, so if I decide to go back to try that project again, I can look at what went wrong the first time.

You can find some pretty decent partially-written-in or even totally empty journals at second-hand stores in the book section. A lot of times it’s significantly cheaper to buy these used, rather than new. But if you want a nice one, mine is from Designworks Ink, which has quite a few notebooks and planners that are of a very high quality.

Just now I went to Amazon to see if I could find a Standard Issue Notebook No. 07 from Designworks Ink, and I was unable to find the exact No. 07  one that I’m using; however I buy grid notebooks from Mr. Pen all the time (and I love that brand). So here’s a link to one exactly like my Standard Issue Notebook No. 07, but it’s from Mr. Pen instead of Designworks Ink.

11. It’s not a book, but you’d be surprised how often I use my big grid calendar to organize my sewing projects!

I buy mine from Current because they are always of the highest quality, they have lots of calendar themes to choose from, they come with calendar stickers, and the grid is NICE AND BIG!

When I typed this blog post on Wednesday morning, I didn’t have an affiliate account with Current, but I discovered that they do have an affiliate marketing program. So I applied that same day. But even if they turn me down for my affiliate marketing application, that’s okay. So what? I won’t earn a commission.

But you’ll know that my purchase recommendation is authentic.

Every year I buy at least three big grid calendars from Current, and some years I buy more. I usually give one to a friend or family member for Christmas, and I keep one in my kitchen to write family events on it; and then I keep another one in my office, where I write my blog post topics.

People have asked me, How do you stay so organized? Well, I haven’t been very successful with using a calendar on my phone. I need to SEE IT, every day — walk right past it — to remind me of what’s coming up, whether it’s a sewing project for my website, a vet appointment for my cat, or a date with my hubby! I gotta SEE it. (Popups on my phone just don’t work for me.)

So Current’s big grid calendars are my go-to organization tool for all my needs. I’ve literally been ordering products (including calendars) from Current since I was in high school in the 1980’s, and that’s the honest truth! (I wish they’d hit me up for a YouTube sponsorship because I’m a believer!)

If you enjoyed this blog post, and you’d like to see my videos, you might want to navigate over to my YouTube channel, ChellyWood1 to look through my playlists.

If you would like to make a donation to this free doll clothes pattern website, please click here. There’s also a “Donate” button in the main menu.

For anyone who would like to expand their dolls’ wardrobes, you should really check out my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course and my “Design Your Own Doll Pants Patterns from Scratch” classes on the C&T Publishing online learning platform. Here’s my bio page on their website, where you can learn more.

For any class on the C&T Publishing website, you don’t have to follow a schedule. Just sign up when you’re ready.

It’s a one-time fee for the course, and there’s no specific time limit to finish your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you. So go check out my paid courses on the C&T Pub site, using this link.

As always, feel free to share my patterns and tutorials on social media. I only ask that you please let people know about my free doll clothes sewing pattern website, to help spread the word.

To read more about my free sewing patterns and tutorials, please visit the “Helpful Tips” page.

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*Please note: when you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include Amazon, Etsy, and the eBay Partner Network. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how my website uses affiliate marketing, please visit the website’s Privacy Policy page.

Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.