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...

Silk Skirt Designed by Jo No Fui for Burda & Silk Top

Jo No Fui Alessia Giacobino Silk Skirt Blouse BurdaStyle Marusya

  I want­ed to make some­thing spe­cial to wear to my friend’s rehearsal dinner. Instead of trav­el­ing else­where for fine fabric(s) and spend­ing mon­ey, I tried to find a fab­ric to use from my fab­ric stash.  After search­ing for some­thing sim­ple and clas­sic, I found some beige silks I bought from Mood Fab­rics in NYC last year. I orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to use the beige silk for a gown. But after using...

Beauty Begins When You Embrace Your Flaws ‑Chanel

Since I can remem­ber, I’ve always had freck­les. Grow­ing up, adults always com­ment­ed on how “cute” my freck­les were. And because of those com­ments (and prob­a­bly the fact that my mom did­n’t have lots of facial freck­les), I’ve had a love/hate rela­tion­ship with my freckles. My mom swore that my freck­les would fade as I grew old­er, but they nev­er did. And since high school, I’ve worn foun­da­tion to cov­er my freck­les...

October Projects ~Marusya

Ukrainian wedding embroidery

Sep­tem­ber was just as busy as August! How­ev­er, I spent the major­i­ty of my cre­ative time doing alter­ations, sewing hand­bags, pat­tern mak­ing, and work­ing on large projects. Here is a list of some of the projects com­ing up in October! I’ll  like­ly share more details and pic­tures of the projects in future posts. Some of these projects are for wed­dings and I don’t want to give away too much ahead...

The Housecoat for the New Modern Housewife By Marusya

Did I men­tion that dur­ing the wed­ding prep & August sewing mad­ness- I was sewing a house­coat for my sister?! When Kate and I went fab­ric shop­ping for her bridal gown, we found this fab­ric in the clear­ance section!We both fell in love with it! The flo­ral striped fab­ric design looked SOOO much like our pil­low cas­es grow­ing up! Weeks pri­or to her wed­ding, Kate had a bridal show­er. So instead...