Sensational Silk, Handbag Sewing

This book isn't one of those pricey, glitzy, lie-flat-on-the-table sewing manuals: I sort of miss the glossy photos (yet I loved its correspondingly low price), and you have to hold the book in your hand to read it-- (it's small) and it doesn't lie flat on the table. If you can forgive it these missing big cost nice-to-haves and just read it -- you'll want to name your next child after Gail Brown, it's that good. This is the only source you need to learn all the tricks as well as the basics on sewing with light-weight and/or slippery materials. The author and editor have tried to make the book work for beginners and for those of us with decades of sewing behind us, but who consider sewing slippery fabrics to be folly. She addresses the typical walking layers problem that we all encounter with a number of techniques that I'm pretty interested in trying. The book contains just enough high-level stuff, like history and comparison of fabrics, without sacrificing precious real estate required for the well-illustrated and detailed procedures for basically everything you would ever need to know how to do: zippers, darts, hems, seams, interfacings... I'm glad I bought it...! I'm keeping it, reading it cover-to-cover, and trying to figure out how to put the pages into a 3-ring binder that sits flat.