Built by Wendy Dresses: The Sew U Guide to Making a Girl's Best Frock [Hardcover-spiral]

I am a huge fan of Wendy Mullin. I greatly enjoyed her first book on sewing, Sew U: The Built by Wendy Guide to Making Your Own Wardrobe, and created several successful pieces from the included patterns. So when I saw that she had written a book on dresses, I immediately bought a copy.

Mullin's book includes paper patterns for three dresses: the shift, the sheath and the dirndl. Mullin then demonstrates how these basic patterns can be slashed, stretched, cut and gathered to create totally different looks.

She mentions this fact several times in the text but it bears repeating: THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS. It assumes that the reader has a working knowledge of sewing and can do such things as insert a zipper, apply bias tape and know how to hem. Further, the included patterns do not have seem allowances. These will have to be added. So you have to remember when to have seam allowances, when to make them bigger (for hems and self-facings) and when to eliminate them altogether (for edges to be finished with bias tape). This can be a lot for someone who is just learning the difference between a straight stitch and a zigzag.

I have a fair amount of sewing experience but none in pattern making. I chose the Oktoberfest-inspired frock (a modified sheath dress) and got to work. First, I made a muslin of the basic sheath pattern. Mullin covers fitting issues, mostly the bust and hips, but does not have information on more complicated adjustments. I have a swayback and square shoulders to account for. I consulted Vogue Sewing, Revised and Updated and added a back dart to fix the swayback issues. The raglan shoulders were roomy and required no adjusting. I think that a narrow shouldered person will likely have to take them in a bit.

The basic muslin done, I started on the Oktober dress. The pattern separates the bodice from the skirt (it's all one piece in the basic sheath pattern) and then widens the skirt. The neckline is also widened. The first problem I noticed is that the dress calls for two fronts but the layout on the book has the front cut on the fold of the goods. I caught it but it might be confusing the a beginner. I don't like having to second guess patterns.

I followed the measurements to a T. The second problem I noticed was the width of the neckline. It was sliding off my shoulders. My square shoulders. I can only imagine what would happen to a gal with narrow or even average shoulders. I decided to take in the neckline at the shoulder points, creating a puff cap sleeve.

After I sewed on the skirt, things really went wrong. The picture in the book and what I wanted was a sassy little baby doll dress with a German accent. What I ended up with was what looked like a grade school uniform jumper. Dowdy is not a word that I usually associate with Built by Wendy but it is the only one that describes the result. And because of the nature of the front opening, it is not feasible to take in the bodice.

I ended up whacking back the skirt and creating what turned out to be a pretty cute top. But I wanted a dress, not a blouse. Plus there is the wasted fabric to consider.

Bottom Line: I love the concept of the book but the typos are distressing. The dress I attempted required so many changes to be wearable that it really was more trouble than it was worth. However, I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt and think that perhaps the style just did not suit my body type. I just don't know if I want to sew another item out of the book.

I really liked the first Built by Wendy book. This one is a disappointment. Really not particularly helpful at all. The book is based on three basic dress types: sheath, shift and dirndl. As another reviewer said, these are frocks in the pejorative sense of the word.
Particularly annoying for me was Wendy's description of the five figure types in the "How to create the perfect dress for you" section. There's pear ("Think J.Lo."), boy ("Think Keira Knightley."), hourglass ("Think Scarlett Johansson."), athletic ("Think Angelina Jolie.") and average.
That's it.
If you are not "average" and also not built like any of the above movie stars, then, as far as Wendy is concerned, you don't exist.
First book I've ever returned to Amazon. Probably the last book I'll buy from Wendy.

I love this book! I'm a beginner/intermediate sewer - I can follow a pattern, but whether or not it looks like anything you'd want to wear out of the house tends to be a toss-up. But this book has really improved my skills by teaching me how to make a pattern, making me understand how patterns go together and work, and encouraging me to fix my fit problems and really learn to alter things that didn't turn out right the first time. Now that I've made and perfected muslins for each of the three basic types of dresses Wendy talks about in the book, I can toss out a new variation on any of them in a single evening and wear it to work the next day. Not ALL of the patterns are my cup of tea, but I definitely wouldn't say they're dowdy or only for very skinny girls or too young or whatever the other complaints have been. As an average-to-curvy almost-30 year old, I can certainly make and wear at least half of them (my favorites so far are "uptown girl" and "9-to-5") - and I know enough now to alter the three basic patterns into anything ELSE I'd like to make them into (I used one of the dress patterns to make my very-first-ever button-down shirt). It's definitely not a book for beginners, but it might make an intermediate sewer into an advanced sewer!

Very very very pleased with this book - probably one of my top-three most-useful sewing books.

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