Singer Sewing Book - Mary Brooks Picken

Singer Sewing Book

(Libro de Costura Singer)

Mary Brooks Picken

Editorial Singer Sewing Machine Company

1950

En inglés

Tapa dura

244 páginas

Profusamente ilustrado b/n + láminas a color

Impreso en Estados Unidos

✶ ESTADO: 9/10. Excelente estado.

Desgastes mínimos por paso del tiempo.

Ilustración reproducida en esta edición

✶ INTRODUCCIÓN:

El propósito de este libro es poner en tus manos, en un solo volumen completo, los medios para alcanzar una de las experiencias más felices de la vida cotidiana de una mujer. La costura, cuando se realiza con habilidad y confianza, puede ser exactamente eso, porque puede significar la satisfacción de las necesidades y deseos de la familia mediante el trabajo de tus propias manos. Una persona con un pasatiempo es una persona cuya vida resulta interesante. Los psicólogos dicen que el desarrollo de un pasatiempo absorbente, en especial uno que involucre el uso de las manos, es uno de los elementos más importantes para llevar una vida equilibrada y bien integrada. Cuando la mente y las manos están ocupadas en la creación de algo útil y atractivo, no queda lugar para el descontento, el aburrimiento, las pequeñas preocupaciones, los temores y los celos, y hay pocos placeres comparables a la sensación de logro que da tener entre las manos el producto terminado con destreza gracias al propio esfuerzo. Tal vez el más gratificante de todos los pasatiempos para una mujer sea la costura. No sólo es una salida para su impulso creativo, una manera de aprovechar su sentido del diseño, sus dedos hábiles, su gusto por el color y la textura, sino que las cosas que hace pueden embellecer su casa y proveerle a ella y a su familia la clase de ropa que más les favorece, con un gran ahorro respecto del costo de comprar esos artículos. Lo mejor de todo es que la costura es un pasatiempo que cualquier mujer, con un poco de paciencia y un poco de práctica, puede cultivar con pericia y placer. La buena costura no surge de las ilusiones, sino del trabajo práctico real, de sentarse frente a la máquina de coser con piezas de tela y aprender a unirlas hermosamente. Este libro está pensado para mostrarte cómo hacerlo con facilidad e interés, para ser tu compañero en todos tus trabajos de costura, para estar a tu lado con sugerencias, inspiraciones y demostraciones que harán de la costura el placer que debe ser. Buenas herramientas, buena técnica y buenas ideas son todo lo que cualquier experto puede aportar a su trabajo. Esperamos que la información de estas páginas te brinde los fundamentos de estos tres requisitos para tu costura. Hacé que este libro trabaje para vos. Te dará horas y horas de satisfacción y mucho dinero ahorrado; y puede, con tu ayuda y la de tu máquina de coser, hacer que tu familia y tu hogar sean los mejor vestidos del vecindario. En nuestro sincero deseo de producir una guía de costura práctica y útil, no pudimos pensar en nadie mejor preparado para hacerla que Mary Brooks Picken. La señora Picken, la máxima autoridad en costura hogareña, es autora de 91 libros sobre costura y artesanías que han guiado a cientos de miles de mujeres hacia logros exitosos. Durante muchos años fue Directora de Instrucción de una famosa escuela de costura por correspondencia y, desde entonces, a través de sus libros, revistas, la radio, su trabajo con escuelas y universidades en todo Estados Unidos, se ha convertido en amiga y maestra de incontables mujeres que cosen. Como una de las fundadoras y figuras principales de The Fashion Group y directora del Costume Institute del Metropolitan Museum of Art de Nueva York, está particularmente capacitada para aportar al oficio de la costura una verdadera inspiración de moda. En este libro, el último de los muchos excelentes textos que preparó para nosotros, trabajó en plena cooperación con nuestro Departamento Educativo en los métodos y las instrucciones, de modo que estén completamente coordinados con las prácticas enseñadas en los Centros de Costura Singer. Debemos agradecer a Claire F. Valentine por el formato de este libro y por la presentación clara y completa del material ilustrativo; también a Theresa Brakeley por la coordinación de los textos y su trabajo editorial. Por las fotografías de hermosos interiores incluidas en este libro, que muestran una variedad de usos decorativos de los géneros para el hogar, estamos en deuda con los siguientes: The American Home, Armstrong Cork Company, Better Homes & Gardens, Bigelow, Sanford Carpet Company, Inc., Burlington Mills, Kling Factories, Mademoiselle’s Living, McCall’s Magazine, F. Schumacher & Company, Today’s Woman Magazine, Tomlinson of High Point, N. C., Woman’s Home Companion, The Irish Linen Guild y Carole Stupell, Ltd. SINGER SEWING MACHINE COMPANY

Ilustración reproducida en esta edición

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this book is to put into your hands in one complete package the means of attaining one of the happiest experiences of a woman’s every-day life. Sewing, when it is done with skill and confidence, can be exactly that, for it can mean the satisfaction of family needs and wishes through the work of your own hands. A person with a hobby is a person whose life is interesting. Psychologists say that the development of an absorbing hobby, particularly one involving the use of the hands, is one of the most important elements in leading a well-balanced and well-integrated life. When the mind and the hands are occupied with the creation of something useful and attractive, there is no room for discontent, boredom, petty worries, fears and jealousies, and there are few pleasures to equal the sense of accomplishment of holding in one’s hands the skillfully finished product of one’s own efforts. Perhaps the most rewarding of all hobbies for a woman is sewing. Not only is it an outlet for her creative impulse, a way to make use of her sense of design, her deft fingers, her enjoyment of color and texture, but the things she makes can beautify her home and provide for herself and her family the kind of clothing most becoming to them at a great saving over the cost of buying such items. Best of all, sewing is a hobby that any woman with a little patience and a little practice can pursue with expertness and enjoyment. Successful sewing does not come from wishful thinking, but from actual practical work, sitting at your sewing machine with pieces of fabric and learning to put them together beautifully. This book is designed to show you how to do so with ease and interest, to be your companion in all of your sewing endeavors, to stand at your side with suggestions, inspirations, and demonstrations that will make sewing the delight it should be. Good tools, good craftsmanship, and good ideas are all that any expert can bring to his work. It is our hope that the information in these pages will provide you with the fundamentals of all three of these requirements for your sewing. Make this book work for you. It will bring you hours and hours of satisfaction and dollars and dollars in money saved; and it can, with your help and your sewing machine, make your family and your home the best-dressed in your neighborhood. In our earnest desire to produce a practical, helpful sewing guide, we could think of no one so well equipped to prepare it as Mary Brooks Picken. Mrs. Picken, the foremost authority on home sewing, is the author of 91 books on sewing and crafts which have guided hundreds of thousands of women to successful accomplishment. For many years she was the Director of Instruction of a famous correspondence school of sewing, and since then, through her books, magazines, radio, in her work with schools and colleges throughout the U. S. A., has become the friend and teacher of countless numbers of women who sew. As one of the founders and leading spirits in The Fashion Group and a director of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, she is particularly able to bring to the craft of sewing a real fashion inspiration. In this book, the latest of many excellent texts she has prepared for us, she has worked in full cooperation with our Educational Department on methods and instructions so that they are completely coordinated with the practices taught in Singer Sewing Centers. Thanks are due to Claire F. Valentine for the format of this book and the clear and comprehensive presentation of illustrative material; also to Theresa Brakeley for the coordinating of copy and her editorial work. For the photographs of beautiful interiors in this book, showing a variety of decorative uses of fabric furnishings for the home, we are indebted to the following: The American Home, Armstrong Cork Company, Better Homes & Gardens, Bigelow, Sanford Carpet Company, Inc., Burlington Mills, Kling Factories, Mademoiselle’s Living, McCall’s Magazine, F. Schumacher & Company, Today’s Woman Magazine, Tomlinson of High Point, N. C., Woman’s Home Companion, The Irish Linen Guild and Carole Stupell, Ltd. SINGER SEWING MACHINE COMPANY

✶ INDICE:

Introduction

Acknowledgements

How to Use This Book

Your Sewing Machine

To Sew Successfully

Your Attitude toward Your Machine

Your Sewing Equipment

Color and Clothes

Know about Fabrics

Chart Your Way

Beginning to Sew

Hand Sewing—Stitches

Seams and Seam Finishes

Darts and Tucks

Gathering, Shirring, and Ruffling

Pleats and Insets

Your Measurement Chart

Patterns for Your Use

Pattern Adjustments

Special Fitting Problems

Your Dress Form

Hem Finishes

Facings and Corners

Bindings and Edge Finishes

Cording, Tubing, and Self-Trimming

Pockets

Neck Openings and Collars

Sleeve Finishes

Skirt and Dress Plackets

Buttonholes, Buttons, and Fastenings

Belts and Belt Carriers

Designers’ Sketches

Quilting—Top-Stitching

Feminine Frills

The Zigzagger for Appliqué

Tucking and Pinking

Trimming with Braid

Fagoting and Hemstitching

Tubing

Sewing for Children

Sewing for Infants

Smartness Essential in Children’s Clothes

How to Bundle Your Sewing

Planning Clothes for Children

Teaching Children to Sew

Home Decoration

Windows and How to Drape Them

Changing Window Proportions

Fixtures

Measuring for Curtains and Draperies

Dressing Your Windows

Dressing Up Your Bed

Dressing Tables

Dressing Up Your Closets

Dressing Your Table

Monograms

Slip-Cover Measurements Chart

Slip-Cover Your Chairs

Slip-Covers for the Car

Singercraft Rugs

Decorators’ Sketches

Mending

Gifts You Can Make

“Room of Her Own”

Index

- Color Plates

Color Fans—Light Blondes, Medium Blondes, Gray-Haired

Color Fans—Red or Auburn, Medium Brunettes, Dark Brunettes

Your Sewing Machine Makes Decorating Easy

Draperies Provide Privacy for Double-Purpose Rooms

Use Fabric to Bring Old and New into Harmony

Informal Decoration for Every-Day Living

Glazed Chintz for Line, Color, and Design

Room for Comfort and Recreation

Heavy Textures Seldom Need Trimming

Traditional Furniture Blooms with Appropriate Fabric Furnishings

Two Ways with Prints

Bedrooms with an Air

Use Related Colors in Adjoining Small Rooms

Use Fringe, Ruffles, or Embroidery for Finish and a Flourish

Pink and Gray Go Modern

Victorian-Inspired Bedroom

Organdie with Gingham

When You Live in One Room

Ilustración reproducida en esta edición