Preparing for Easter 2014

This is by far my least favorite time of the year. Between giv­ing up dai­ly plea­sures dur­ing Lent, doing tax­es, and the gloomy weath­er, I dread March and ear­ly April! Despite all these things, there’s one thing that does light­en the mood…sewing my 2014 East­er dress! Again I’m design­ing an East­er dress inspired by my babcha. This time I’m using some of her old fab­ric rather than spend­ing count­less hours doing...

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Last Sep­tem­ber, I was able to vis­it some of the girls I babysat for while I was in col­lege. These girls were some of the first peo­ple to receive my one-of-a-kind quilt­ed hand­bags. In fact, I can remem­ber bring­ing over the fab­ric squares to their house, so that they could design their purses! Now a few years lat­er, they’re design­ing more than just hand­bags! This time, I asked them to...

Projects from the Past: Wedding Rehearsal Dress & Silk Floral Dress

Over 2 years ago, I made my sis­ter’s wed­ding rehearsal dress. I used Vogue’s V8766 pattern. I used ivory raw silk for the under­lay, poly bridal lace for the over­lay, and a light­weight ivory poly­ester fab­ric for the lining. This dress was pret­ty heavy from all the layers! I adjust­ed the pat­tern to have thin straps and short­er hem length. Also, I did not attach the sleeves to the raw...

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...