Reddit reviews Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing:: A Modern Guide to Couture-Style Sewing Using Basic Vintage Techniques (Gertie's Sewing)

Actually I'm going to tell you NOT to start by altering your own clothes. It is actually easier to make something new than to alter clothing. I suggest you learn to sew from the following books: The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnik, the SEW Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp and Stitch by Stitch. All three of these books come with patterns for all sorts of projects. Once you graduate to some harder things, and especially if you are interested in sewing 1950s-inspired retro clothing, try Gerties New Book for Better Sewing By Gretchen Hirsch. This book has beautiful patterns and also helps with more couture techniques. Happy sewing!

The pattern is from this book it was the shirt dress, I just added longer sleeves and stiffer interfacing.

I'd recommend picking up a sewing book that comes with patterns, like the Colette sewing Handbook or BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook

I have both. The Colette book is laid out kind of like a lesson plan where you sew all the projects in order, and they gradually introduce new techniques. They cover a lot on fitting, but not a ton on modifying the pattern to look different.

The BurdaStyle book is laid out in a more "traditional" way, so all the reference stuff is at the front, then they move onto the patterns. The book has great details and ideas on changing up the patterns to suit your preference.

I also picked up Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing recently, which if you're into vintage style clothing, I'd recommend you pickup later on. (it's a more intermediate-level book, so I would recommend working on other patterns first.)

Yikes, I just went to try this and all the dresses available on amazon.ca are the fast fashion/low quality type that I just can't dig :\ I don't wear jeans/trousers/slacks/shorts because I find them uncomfortable, so I need me some robes! I'm gonna make my own dress robes.

Gertie's book is wonderful, I've been able to learn so much from it! She also has a blog.

Both Vogue and Readers Digest have pretty good books that cover a majority of techniques. That will cover the basics, but if you think she would like something a little more fun and less textbook-y, you could try this and this. The authors both have blogs that I follow, and I really like them!