Packed with key skills and friendly know-how, this essential guide is ideal for anyone taking their first steps into dressmaking. The latest title in Debbie Shore's Sewing Room Secrets series, this essential guide is packed with key skills and friendly know-how and is ideal for anyone taking their first steps into dressmaking. It covers the important basics such as: how to read any pattern; how to adapt and adjust a pattern; how to choose, mark and cut fabric; how to add zips, pockets, collars and buttons; how to adapt old, misshapen or oversized garments, and how to do some basic mending--all shown step by step. This book is a toolkit designed to equip you with all the dressmaking skills you need; it contains 10 inventive projects for you to try with your pre-loved clothes, and gives you all the knowledge you need to make your own clothes from scratch using the pattern of your choice.