[.ca] Fabric Savvy: The Essential Guide for Every Sewer (ISBN 1561585734)

From Amazon.com:
For those of you who have managed in the past to find the right pattern and the perfect new fabric, only to give up in frustration when the fabric doesn't behave like anything you've used before, Fabric Savvy is here to help. Author Sandra Betzina, host of Home and Garden TV's Sew Perfect, has wrestled with just about every fabric out there, and she's lived to tell about it. Perfectly suited to beginning and experienced sewers alike, this excellent guide devotes, in alphabetical order, two pages to each of 85 fabrics. For every material Betzina highlights a multitude of topics, including fabric facts (bulky/drape/breathable/how fabricated), suitability (types of projects), sewing tips, lay-out (and why it matters), interfacing, stitch length, seam finish, closures, and hemming. The categories are thorough, as is the scope of fabrics addressed: waterproof breathables, tencel, and lame, to name a few, along with 14 types of silk and 8 wools. Color photographs accompany the descriptions of fabrics and projects, while helpful illustrations further explain the techniques used. Finally, Betzina offers a glossary of fabric terms and a thorough listing of contact information for fabric and alternative pattern companies, making Fabric Savvy a necessary resource for any sewing enthusiast. --Molly McElroy

Great Resource:
I have to say I love this book. Easy to use, you can get in get the information you need and get on with your project!!! Love it...Thanks Sandra Betzina.

A Sewing Room Necessity!:
This is a great reference book for everyone who loves to sew! I have a vast selection of sewing books, but this is one that I refer to time and again. You won't regret buying this book.

Useful, but not exactly a "bible":
A colorful, useful guide to fabric and how to handle it. I only wish that swatches of fabric or large close-ups of the fabric were included, rather than the outfits pictured, as the outfits are often made out of more than one fabric. Morevoer, with eight kinds of wool, being able to see and touch them would make the information more available to me. Also, it would be nice to see how finished garments hang on a body instead of how they lay flat. Nonetheless, it is a very good book, very well organized, and very well constructed considering how it will be so heavily used.

Ok at best; get Shaeffer's guide instead:
This is a terse book, nice and colourful but really not indispensible. Get Claire Shaeffer's Fabric Sewing Guide instead which really is encyclopedic. Unfortunately both suffer from not having things like cross-names (parachute cloth = supplex) but Fabric Savvy is just a little too brief and does not totally handle all the problems in sewing for that particular fabric like Shaeffer's does (it's a 4th the size). Also Fabric Savvy covers of course allot less different fabrics batching them together and ignoring the nuances.

DAMN! You're Good!!!:
Anyone that sews should have this book!! This is a seamstress' BIBLE! I refer to this book everytime I change to a new fabric. This book is very detailed! This is a NECESSARY BUY!! Thanks Sandra!