Long Floral Jacket with Genuine Leather Details and Pockets

Think Spring  Even Though It’s Winter I made this spring flo­ral jack­et while cooped up dur­ing last week’s bliz­zard. The space heater, fin­ger­less gloves, hot choco­late, and fleece socks kept me warm in the ‑14 degrees! Con­tact me if you want a spring jack­et for your­self (you can pick the fab­ric)! ______________________________ Join my Marusya Marusya sub­scriber list and you’ll be entered for future contests! If your part­ner is not...

Little Black Velvet Dress

What makes a hol­i­day even bet­ter than any ordi­nary day? Design­ing your very own out­fit for the day! As much as I loved cre­at­ing my East­er out­fits over the years, I nev­er attempt­ed to cre­ate my own Christmas/holiday par­ty dress­es.  Typ­i­cal­ly I’m swamped with work and usu­al­ly wear slacks because of the freez­ing tem­per­a­tures! So regard­less of those things, this year I made it my goal to start & fin­ish a dress for...

Ukrainian Wedding Attire

Ukrainian wedding embroidery

“Some Will like you, Some People Won’t like you, So What. Next!” (SWSWSWN) This is a phrase my dad heard and passed on to me ( and it con­tin­ues to echo in my head). When I first stepped into the real world after col­lege, I was hard on myself each time I dropped a lead, par­tic­u­lar job, or client. But over time and expe­ri­ence, I’ve come to under­stand SWSWSWN and...

Na zdorov’ia ‑To Good Health for 2014!

Z novīm rokom! I can’t believe it’s now 2014! The last few weeks have been busy and some­what sleep­less, as they always seem to be right before the hol­i­days! But in the end it’s always worth it… My Ukrain­ian Christ­mas with fam­i­ly was bittersweet. This was our first Christ­mas with­out my babcha and we did not trav­el up north to cel­e­brate with our oth­er Ukrain­ian rel­a­tives. Our imme­di­ate fam­i­ly is grow­ing, and this...

Traditional Maltese Lacemaking

Recent­ly my dad took a busi­ness trip to Mal­ta & Gozo, islands off the coast of Italy in the Mediter­ranean.  Mal­ta & Gozo are well-known for their tra­di­tion­al bob­bin lace called “bizzil­la.” So when my dad first told me he was trav­el­ing to Mal­ta, I imme­di­ate­ly request­ed that he return home with Mal­tese lace and video footage of the Mal­tese lace­mak­ers in the streets! Many years ago, I remem­ber an old­er...

Mother of the Bride Dress, Jacket & Shawl

 I met Jimi­ta last year because of my sewing skills! I met her when my friend invit­ed me to join the Junior League Hol­i­day Ball Com­mit­tee (which Jimi­ta was a mem­ber of). Basi­cal­ly my role as a com­mit­tee mem­ber was to help dec­o­rate and sew the table­cloths for the cock­tail tables at the din­ner event.  Dur­ing our last Hol­i­day Ball Com­mit­tee meet­ing, Jimi­ta asked me to make her dress for...