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View A, made in cupro linen & tencel slub in dusty rose from Blackbird Fabrics I am so excited to introduce you to my latest pattern - the Lisbeth pants! These pants are my take on both dressy AND casual pants. I intended on making the Lisbeth pants as a comfortable office wear option, as well as something to lounge around on the weekend. This pattern is so versatile and I hope you like it as much I as do! View B, made in silky linen & viscose in natural from Blackbird Fabrics View A of the Lisbeth pants has a fully functioning zipper fly and a regular hem while sporting a partially elasticated waistband. I would say it is all business in the front and comfort in the back. As for view B, don't be fooled by the faux fly. View B may look like a dressy jogger, but it is all about comfort. It has a faux fly, a fully elasticated waistband with a drawstring, and elastic hems. Both views feature an inverted yoke in the back, which is drafted to provide some shaping, as well as slanted deep front pockets and large patch pockets in the back. The Lisbeth pants are drafted for woven fabrics with no stretch. Twill, linen, hemp, viscose and rayon fabrics will work well with this pattern. You can also use woven fabrics with a slight stretch for extra comfort. I especially like a dressy version of Lisbeth pants in twill with 3% spandex added. The Lisbeth pants also make a great pair of sweatpants when sewn using stretch fabrics! Medium-weight knit fabrics like french terry, sweatshirting will work well with this pattern. I have made many sweatpants over the last few months while working on this pattern and I love wearing them around the house. The faux fly and back yoke make these sweatpants look less casual and I don't feel like a complete slob when wearing them. I will be telling you more about all the sweat pants I made using this pattern next week. Next week I am planning a few blog posts to help you with pattern adjustments and tricky steps when making the Lisbeth pants. If there is anything you need help with, let me know and I will try making it into the blog post. I am so excited for the release of Lisbeth pants and I hope you like them as much as I do! Get Lisbeth Pants xoxo,Anya

You may notice that I have recently added two children's patterns to the shop - the Misha Vest and the River Sleepsack. These patterns were part of Blue Darling Patterns by Anna Zoe which I started shortly after the birth of my daughter Zoe in 2019. It was a fun venture and I loved getting to know the digital patterns world through the lens of kids patterns. Over the past two years I slowly started getting away from designing sewing patterns for children and getting really interested in getting my other designs into the world. These new designs have been my passion and this is the way I see Anna-Zoe Patterns going. At least for now. In the meantime, I find it hard to upkeep the two websites - one for the two children's patterns and one for my adult patterns. Especially since I am not really doing anything to promote the children's side. So I decided to move the two patterns to the Anna-Zoe website and let the Blue Darling website go. Do I find it sad? No, I don't. I have never got really deeply into it and everything I created is still here. But it is a huge weight off my shoulders to have it all in one spot. I am yet to sew the final product photos for the River Sleepsack... The pattern has been tested and proofread, and yet I have been trying to take final product photos for over 6 months now. Every time I sew one up for Zoe, I put her right into it, thinking I will snap a photo later. But later, the sleepsack is no longer "new". I also have made many, many sleepsacks for my friends' kids, which I promptly gave away before taking photos.... At this point, Zoe is out of the sleepsack and sleeps under a blanket, and I finally had enough and decided to just put the pattern out there. It is arguably one of my most used patterns because I have made it so many times over the years, and I imagine I still will as our friends have babies. I promise I WILL take final photos of the next sleepsack I make! But just in case if you get the pattern and make it, maybe send me a picture so I can add it to the listing, ok? xoxo,Anya

I have been thinking about trying my hand at my own patterns for a while. I always had ideas in my head of what I want to wear, and that was one of the reasons I came back to sewing after finishing university. I started drafting patterns for myself a few years ago and I loved being able to sew exactly what I wanted. A few weeks into COVID-19 pandemic I was laid off my full-time job. I have only been back at work for a month after my maternity leave and worked half of it from home. It was surreal, but not entirely unexpected. All in all, I was very lucky and privileged to be ridiculously happy about this turn of events. After all, it gave me an opportunity to jump into the indie pattern scene without distraction. So here we are. I am thrilled to announce the test call for my first pattern for women - Bessie Top. The Bessie Top is my take onto a boxy tee. It has plenty of ease for a boxy look, but still provides for bust shaping through side darts. The top has exaggerated two-piece raglan sleeves, which add interest to the simple design. View A is a woven t-shirt. It has a longer sleeve, which can be rolled up if desired and a high-low hem. The neckline is finished with a bias binding. View B is a button-up shirt with a two-piece collar. The sleeve is slightly shorter on this version, and the hem is straight. The top was drafted with lightweight linen or cotton in mind. Light to medium weight fabrics work well with this pattern. Think linen, cotton (voile, seersucker, poplin, shirting, gauze), hemp, viscose or rayon. Lighter weight fabrics will add more drape, whereas heavier fabrics will result in a more structured garment. At this time I am offering sizes US 0-20. It is my hope to expand my size range, so if you find you need a bigger size please do let me know. I would love to know there is a demand for it! The testing will run from Friday, July 24 to Monday August 10, 2020. You will have two full weekends to sew the pattern. The testing will be done through Facebook, but if you prefer to communicate via email I am okay with that. If you would like to test this pattern, then fill out the application below and I will get back to you before July 24. APPLY Thank you so much for considering testing for me! xoxo,Anya P.S. I have changed up the hem of the two views, so that my shirt has a high-low hem and my top has a straight hem.

It is finally ready! This baby of mine has been in the making for 6 months now. Almost as long as it took me to make the real baby... I didn't think I was going to breastfeed Zoe at first. I was sure I would have some kind of issue with it, whether it would be physical or mental. But as it turned out, the only issue we did end up having was with Zoe being tongue-tied, which was quickly resolved by wonderful lactation consultant my midwife sent me to. Since my early days of being a mom revolved around feeing the baby all. the. time and I was dead tired, I found that having a comfortable t-shirt was key. Unfortunately, my finds at local maternity stores did not meet my high standards. They were either too short, too tight or too scratchy... I like to say that being able to sew spoilt me. I know what I want, I know what fabric I want it made in and I know how I want a garment to fit. So I found myself missing my old t-shirts... Then while browsing online one day I stumbled upon this layered t-shirt idea and I thought I could do it... So once Zoe was asleep, I got to hacking. It took me a few weeks to finally get it, and once I did I decided that I will need to share my findings with other crafty nursing moms. I wanted to create something that can be easily stored on your computer and can be a reference material whenever you need it. No more searching internet for that one link you remember seeing back in the day. So I took the time to create this PDF tutorial for you. I just didn't realize I would take months to do it and end up second-guessing myself and everything I knew along the way. Let's talk about the design of the t-shirt! The t-shirt consists of two layers, which are secured at the shoulder seam. The cropped t-shirt layer floats above the bottom tank which has deep armholes. This allows for easy and convenient nursing access. I intentionally left the hems of both layers and sleeves raw, because who has time for that when the baby naps for a little bit at a time, am I right?! So raw hems are not only a nice design detail, but they also speed up the sewing process. I made the t-shirt I am wearing in photos using fabric gifted to me by Harts Fabrics, as I am a part of their Harts Street Team. I chose to make the top layer in a different colorway to showcase the design of the t-shirt, but you don't have to do it. The t-shirt looks great when made in the same fabric! For fabrics, I recommend jersey knits with spandex for a good recovery. I tried this hack in 100% linen fabric and it did not turn out well. Because the t-shirt is stretching a little bit with use, spandex content and good recovery are key. I used this tread organic bamboo knit for the top layer, and basic black bamboo knit for the bottom layer. This fabric is silky and just so luxurious! I find bamboo knits and cotton/bamboo blends are my favorites for this hack. For the pattern, I used Lark Tee by Grainline in scoop neck variation. Lark Tee is one of my go-to t-shirt patterns, but I have tried this hack on a few other patterns as well and it turned out great. I am really hoping one day it will be a stand-alone pattern. I already have drafted a t-shirt that I like so I am on my way there, but it will certainly take me a few more months to get it done. In the meantime, if you are a confident pattern hacker, or just feeling ambitious and have a favorite t-shirt pattern, this tutorial is for you. I really hope you find it useful and easy to follow. I tried my best to explain the hacking and sewing steps as straightforwardly as I could. However, if you find something is unclear or you still have questions, please reach out! I will be more than happy to help out. And if you do end up making nursing t-shirts using this hack, please use #aznursingtee and tag me on Instagram @anna.zoe.sewing so that I can see your makes! Nursing T-shirt Hack Download Love,Anya

Hello! I am popping in today with a quick note that I wrote a blog post about history of stripes over on Sewcialists blog today. I had no clue that striped clothing had such a rich history behind it until I started reading Devil's Cloth by Michel Pastoureau. Did you know that stripes have been associated with societal outcasts throughout centuries? Neither did I! So, if you are interested to find out more, head on over to Sewcialists and let me know what you think of stripes. Anya

Hi! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you! I hope everyone has enjoyed holiday season and time with family and close friends. I can't believe it is already 2018! It's been a long, long time since I visited my blog or even Instagram. The world hasn't come to an end and people's lives have continued on in my absence, and that is a great thing, although my ego may think overwise. Even though my absence probably has not been overly noticed, I do feel that an update is in order. First off, I am not pregnant and everyone is in good health. The reason why I have been so quiet is actually very simple - I've been busy with renos. I should add that these particular renovations were unexpected and almost unforeseen. Although, if I was a little bit more observant of myself and my nature, I would probably not be very surprised by this. As some of you may know, we bought our house back in 2016. It is a wonderful, older home full of character and charm. It was built in 80's and has been barely updated since then. There are gorgeous wood paneling around the house, curved staircase with a huge chandelier and an unbelievably large back yard which Misha and Skye, our dogs, have been thoroughly enjoying. While we have had updated most of the upstairs of the house when we first moved it, since 20 year old carpet in bathroom was not just cutting it for me, the rest of the house remained in its original state. That means yellowing 80's wood, orange-y brown paint and those dusty light fixtures... there are a lot of things I miss about 80's but decor is certainly not one of them. The original plan was to start renovating the main floor of the house sometime in 2017, but as you also may know we got hitched in September of 2017. And although the wedding was a ton of fun and worth every penny, it was also expensive and that set our reno plans back a couple years. It was all totally okay with me! Except I didn't realize how much I hated that 80's decor until it really hit me. This past October, right after Canadian Thanksgiving, our powder room really pissed me off. It is a decent size powder room, unfortunately that's the only thing it had going for it. The rest was very sad. The light fixture was broken and only two lightbulbs out of 4 were working. At some point a few years ago previous owners tried to update the vanity by painting it white but by 2017 it was looking really outdated with it's peeling paint and old handles. And don't get me started on that wall colour and those 80s bathroom fixtures... I decided it would be a quick weekend, may be two weekends project to update the bathroom. You know, paint the ceiling, the walls and strip the vanity to it's original wood and give it a new life with a better stain colour. Well, I was wrong. As it turns out, these particular renos were of the very contagious sort. Next thing I know not only our powder room is in disarray and missing a door, our mudroom is taped off, our laundry room is in pieces, I've taken out walls, scraped popcorn finish off ceilings and decided that building furniture can not be much harder than sewing... Oh and it's been months since that first highly emotional decision to start "quick" reno project. I will not bore you with the details of these renovations I found myself in the middle of. I say "I" because Shaun hates any kind of updating work so I, being a very good and sensitive wife, although quite crazy at times, let him completely off the hook with helping me. I always was pretty handy with tools and I always hated depending on someone else to do something I didn't want to wait for. I also really don't like being a nag, and I would absolutely hate getting into fights over something that is not that important in the grand scheme of things. So our agreement was that I do the work, and he steps up in other areas while I am busy learning all these new and exciting skills he doesn't care for. I know it may sound crazy to most people, but it really worked for us. He helped when he felt like it, or when I needed an extra set of hands, he stepped up and walked the dogs, made dinners and gave me space when I needed it, and I was happy to just work away on these projects. No nagging, no fighting, minimal disagreements and everyone is content. I finally was able to contain my renovations to the power room, mud room, laundry room and the hallway that connected the three. The renos are still not finished. The temperatures dropped drastically in Calgary over the last few weeks and since our garage is not heated I can not do the last few things until it warms up. Thankfully that allowed me some time to slow down, rest, clean up and take a breather I really needed. I hope that I will finish with this set of renovations by spring and that is a very generous timeline! I am sure it is very doable. I am dying to share the photos and I am sure you want to see them too. After all, I know I am not the only one who looks in other people's homes to see what their interiors look like when walking the dogs at night... At least I hope I am not the only one. I didn't think this through very well and didn't take the "before" photos, but I was able to find old ones from when the house was listed back when we bought it. So here is what the offending powder room looked like before I got my hands on it. Note the tiny mirror. I am not too sure why it was so tiny. I could only see my entire face if I stood far enough. But then I guess there are times when I am happy about not seeing my entire face... And this is what it looks like now. Also, I would like to point out that I have an insane level of respect for interior photographers now. It's impossible to capture everything with the lens on my camera! I left the sink and the vanity as to save the cost, and updated everything around it. I almost feel that the beige shell sink now has a kind of cool vintage vibe... At least I think it works so much better now. Here is the other side of the powder room. I built the shelves over the toilet and filled them with various knick knacks. If any of you listen to My Dad Wrote a Porno I am sure you will appreciate a bronze pomegranate on the right end of the bottom shelf. I almost squealed in delight when I saw it. I had to have it. Another thing that our powder room was lacking was a strudy door. I know, nothing quite like a shaky light door in the main bathroom right? So I decided to replace that as well. The original door was a hollow pocket door, and while I kept the pocket door set up, I replaced the door with a solid pine door which I stained dark. I am sure our guests will appreciate the privacy this new door provides! Now, the laundry room was the next in line to catch the renovation virus. The old laundry room was sad and dark. I have no idea how much photo editing went into the photo below to make it look lighter. And how the hell did they capture the span of this tiny room?... Shaun's parents gifted us a new washer and dryer as a housewarming gifts when these old ones gave out shortly after we moved in. It was so nice of them! I love the new machines, they make laundry so much better. As for the decor, note the tiny mirror. There are tiny mirrors all over this house! It is so strange, but I am not complaining. I should have enough tiny mirrors by now to do a wall full of tiny mirrors one day. The laundry room now is pretty much the laundry room of my dreams. I always wanted a big counter on top of the washer and dryer (no more missing socks!). So I decided to build one myself. As I was building it, I realized I had enough space in between washer and dryer for a small shelving unit. So I build that one too. I updated the cabinets with a couple coats of paint and new hardware. Oh and the faux metal tile backsplash was an impulse decision which I think really worked. I can't say that I love doing laundry now, but I do love pre-washing my fabric and folding it on that big counter. I loved having an extra sink in the laundry room. Especially for hand washing all those me-made bras. But the old plastic thing was shaky and seemed like it was about to fall over every time I used it. I couldn't afford the sink I really wanted, so I found this vessel silk for sale on kijiji and built a vanity for it. I planned the design so that the end result would look very similar to what I really wanted to buy but would cost me thousands of dollars. I am very happy with how it turned out!! Now it all needs to be hooked up. I will not be doing that myself though. Either Shaun or my dad can do that. This is where the extend of my handiness ends for now. The mudroom, was dark and narrow. I don't have the proper before photo of it so here is what it looked like when I started on renovating it and then realized I'd better snap a before photo. At this point I already scraped the popcorn finish off the ceiling, repaired it, primed and painted it. I also took out the doors off the far closet and taped off the flooring. Along with tiny mirrors this house was full of door ways and doors. Hollow wood doors, stained 80's orange everywhere... There was a door to the mudroom, then there was a door from the mudroom to the laundry room and the two closets with hollow wood doors in the mudroom. Oh and the door to the garage which is thankfully not hollow but stained that same orange brown. I felt claustrophobic every time I entered my house through garage or went to do laundry. So all the extra doors had to go. I took them off and send them to our basement for storage. I guess I am still afraid that I mess something up, so it makes me feel better knowing that the doors are there if I ever want to return the house to its original state... I took both closets apart and decided to raise the openings to the ceiling if I could. I couldn't make them flush with the ceiling as there were beams in the walls, but I almost like this better. I learned how to drywall, tape and mud. It was fun! I also decided to update our garage door and make it look more elegant. To do that I attached trim to it and painted it dark blue. Although I love the way the door looks now, I do not think that colour goes with the dark trim. I will be re-painting the door once it gets warmer. I am thinking burgundy or some other dark red colour instead. I also have been dreaming of mud room bench for a very long time... So being a crazy person that I sometimes am, I decided to build it. How hard can it be? Well, it wasn't easy, but I am very happy I was ignorant enough not to think too much about it. I am even happier that I did it myself! The other closet also has a built in unit now but I haven't had a chance to finish it yet. It is missing doors and drawers. I will be working on them once the weather warms up and I can spend a few hours in the garage. But is works for now. As you can see I am already putting it to good use. Finally I decided to give the gorgeous wood paneling in the hallway an update with a couple coats of darker stain. I still need to stain all the tiny trim that goes around the walls and attach it, but I am loving how much better it looks already! I also didn't care to tape the ceiling as you can see, since I am planning to scrape the popcorn off this ceiling as well sometime in spring. Finally, I need to do a coat of clear poly on this wood to seal it all in. May I bring your attention to the gorgeous tile floors showing up in all the photos? Those are staying for now. At least until we update our kitchen which will involve moving a wall, which if you are wondering, I will not be doing myself. I can live with this tile for a couple years now that the rest of the house is coming together and finally is starting to feel like our house and not our grand-parents'. There you go. Now you know where I have been hiding. While working on this reno project I have been thinking about sewing a lot and the guilt I feel about not engaging as much with the community as I feel I should or want Toit . This unplanned sewing sabbatical of sorts did not feel great. Not because I wasn't sewing, but because I felt that I was not connecting with everyone. I have not been on Instagram as much as I wanted to and I haven't engaged with sewing people as much I wanted either. I definitely struggle with that. I get really overwhelmed and my anxiety spikes when I am on social media too much, but at the same time I feel awful when I don't keep up with my sewing friends. In the past year or so my way of dealing with this overwhelm and anxiety has been to withdraw, but I don't think it is the healthiest way, at least not for me. I guess this post has now turned into a mental health update! I don't think I've said it out loud on my blog, but I have freely shared it in person with those around me that I am learning to thrive with anxiety and ADHD. I don't think these circumstances are necessarily new to me, I was probably able to successfully manage them in the past. However after my brain injury a couple years ago they came out in their full beautiful and bright colours. And although physically my body has healed, I have been learning to adjust to this new mental state for the past couple years. My doctor has been great and very helpful. I ended up making a choice to take medications to help me get an upper hand and turn this into something that will make me better. But with anxiety and ADHD still being relatively new to me, I am learning what sets me off and what is the best way for me to go about things. It really is exciting to discover what works for me and what doesn't! As I've said, too much involvement in social media makes me anxious. Not because I feel like I need to keep up or anything, I carefully curate my feed to keep things that inspire me and make me feel good. But I do feel an internal pressure to be involved more and put more things out there. Now if you ask me what "more" is exactly, I would not know. So in the past I swayed between being super involved to completely withdrawing myself, and I don't think this is healthy. So this year I am hoping that I can figure out how to make this blogging and Instagramming thing work for me. Figuring out what "more involvement" actually means to me is probably a good place to start. And then I can think about where the internal pressure to always be on comes from and hopefully that will help me find ways to re-frame it in a healthier way that works for me. I did not intend for this post to be this long and heavy-ish, but I am going to leave it as is. I am sure a lot of you can relate because after all we are all imperfectly perfect humans. Having said that, I am curious to see what works for you guys when it comes to blogging and social media. If you have any strategies and suggestions please do share. I would love to hear from you! Until next time, Anya

While thinking about what to name this post, I came up with USSR abbreviation which in my sewing world now stands for Un-Selfish Sewing Records. It is not even really that funny, but it was to me so I let out a huge "HA!" while sitting in a coffee shop writing this blog post with my co-maid of honour sitting by my side, working away on her stuff. This blog post has been long coming, yet this seems to be the perfect time to write it whilst I am visiting my best friend in Vancouver, who journeyed with me through the years of wonderful ups and downs, and was there, along with other two amazing women, standing by my side as I embarked on my journey into married life. Even though I was undecided about making my own wedding dress, right off the start I was absolutely sure I would be making dresses for my bridesmaids. This really was an easy decision. It was very important to me that my ladies have well fitting dresses they love and feel comfortable in. I didn't want them to feel obligated to spend a fortune and I hoped they would like their dresses enough to wear them again. Sewing their dresses was really the only obvious way to go about this. When I was thinking of a style, I figured a simple fit and flared dress would be best. Fit and flare dresses look great on everyone. They fit (put intended) all occasions, both dressy and more casual. They also require less altering, because bodice is really the only place that needs extra attention. There are plenty of great fit and flare patterns out there, and it was a bit of a tough choice, but I ended up settling on Deer and Doe's Belladone Dress. The dress won over me with its unique diamond shape cut out in the back. I though it was just the perfect way to slightly elevate bridesmaids dresses while keeping them classy and elegant. Even though the dress style decision was easy, finding just the right fabric was not at all. When I was thinking of my wedding I envisioned the bridesmaids wearing burgundy dresses. In my mind the fabric would have a nice texture to it and, while being a special occasion fabric, would still be wearable after the wedding. I am not over-exadurating when I say I spend months looking for fabric. I searched high and low, what feel like on every continent (thank you internet!) and in every possible fibre content. Eventually I was ready to give up and just buy a wool suiting fabric in the right shade of burgundy to make these dresses, when it occurred to me that I could try to contact an independent fabric store owner and perhaps they would be able to help me... This is when I thought of Michelle from Style Maker Fabrics. I remembered that last Christmas she carried a nice collection of special occasion fabric and I hoped she would may be have some leftovers or know somewhere I could find what I was looking for. I messaged Michelle and to my absolute delight she was eager to help me out. I ended up sending her pictures of fabrics I had in mind and Michelle was looking for possible candidates while on a shopping trip for her store. When she found a couple fabrics she thought I may like, she mailed the samples to me. It was a hard choice, and after much consideration and consulting with my bridesmaids, I picked this beautiful burgundy rose taffeta on navy background. The groomsmen were wearing navy suits and I figured this fabric, with its navy background would compliment the suits just perfectly. Sewing the dresses was no small feat. I wanted to make sure each dress fit really well. I started off with making a muslin of the bodice for each bridesmaid. From there I made fitting adjustments, transferred them to the paper pattern and made another muslin. I repeated the process until I was satisfied with the fit. I made anywhere from two to five muslins per bridesmaid! But the work was worth it, the dresses turned out exactly how I want them. It also helped that the taffeta was a dream to sew. The fabric was very cooperative, easy to iron and didn't fray a ton, unlike the lining I used. I am looking at you, bemberg lining. I know you are all silky and stuff, but, boy, is it a pain in the rear sometimes... The pattern provides instructions to finish neckline and armholes with bias binding, but I wanted the dresses to have a more invisible finish. I decided to line the bodices completely which allowed for a very clean finish. Lining the bodice of the dress with a diamond cut out on the back was a little challenging, but I managed to figure it out. It did require a few extra steps, but again, I feel that the results were worth it. I also had a pleasure of having two young ladies be a part of my bridesmaid pack. Little Anya was my flower girl and her older sister Katya was a junior bridesmaid. I wanted Katya's dress to match bridesmaids dresses, yet still have "young girl" vibe to it. I ended up drafting a simple bodice for her, complete with a diamond cut out in the back. I copied the design of the skirt from Beladonne dress to complete Katya's dress. The only difference was that Katya's skirt had pleats in the back as well as front. She was really happy to have a dress that matched the rest of the bridesmaids, including her mom, who was the other half of the maid of honour duo. Anya's dress was very simple. I wanted it to slightly resemble my dress, so I picked up taffeta in a blush colour, a similar shade to my wedding dress. I drafted a simple bodice and attached a gathered rectangle as a skirt. I felt like having a big bow would really complete her cute look. I managed to find satin fabric that went well with the blush taffeta and I made a pleated belt that had hook and eye closure. To the belt I attached a big bow I made out of the same satin fabric. It looks like the bow sash is a one piece, tied together around her waist in a very delicate way, whereas in reality it is an easy to put on and take off belt with a bow hand sewn to it. I couldn't be happier with how the dresses turned out. My ladies looked and felt amazing. They also loved the pockets on the dresses, which came in handy to carry all the necessities like extra kleenex and lipstick. I am very happy with my decision to make the bridesmaids dresses. It felt like the perfect way to show my appreciation to my friends who were there with me on one of the most important days of my life. Prior to getting engaged I didn't even realize how much having these incredible women by my side on my wedding day would mean to me. I get emotional thinking about the power of friendships and having strong connections that last and evolve throughout the years. These ladies have been by my side through so much. We have supported each other, laughed and cried together and we got through some rough times. Having them stand with me on this happy occasion and knowing they have my back as I tie my life to Shaun and start this whole marriage thing felt absolutely incredible. It gives me so much courage and confidence to know that we have each other's encouragement, guidance and love no matter what happens in life. Making them the perfect bridesmaids dresses is really just a small way to show how much I appreciate them and how lucky I feel to have them in my life. I will finish this post before it turns into even more of an emotional ode to female friendship. I still have quite a bit of this gorgeous fabric left, and after seeing just how beautiful these Beladonne dresses looked I may just make one for myself now. Perhaps one day all four of us could hang out and drink wine while wearing matching dresses. Now, how perfect would that be? Love, Anya P.S. Michelle has loads of gorgeous special occasion fabrics in her shop now. Go check them out! Thank you to Sarah Nicole Photography for these amazing shots. The talented Shirley did our make up and she was wonderful! Blake has been doing my hair for years, and I couldn't be happier when he agreed to do our hair for the wedding. He is an absolute riot!

I finished my brother's coat!! I can not believe it finally happened. I want to say I am very proud and happy, but I can't help but feel a little guilty as well. I promised to make the coat a long time ago. A very long time ago. Almost two years ago. I bought the fabric a year and a half ago and started on the coat then... I believe almost two winters have passed since my brother asked me if I would be able to make him a coat... I feel that I should have had this coat made sooner and because of that I feel bad. A coat should not have taken me this long and to my brother, I am very sorry. I will do better next time. Now that we have established how I feel about my tardiness in making this coat, let's move to the fun details and the parts I am proud of. The coat came about because my brother, like me, has trouble finding a nice coat that fits. He is slim, and very tall, he also has very broad shoulders and long arms. If this description makes him sounds hunky, well he is. All the coats that he tried on over the years were either too tight in the shoulders and across the back, or too big in the waist and always too short in the arm length. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen him wearing an actual tailored coat... We started off with thinking about the design and looking for patterns. He seemed to gravitate towards double breasted coats and I was so happy about it. I love double breasted coats, there is just something so classy about them. For the pattern, I started off with Thread Theory's Goldstream Peacoat, but when I muslined it I just couldn't quite figure out how to adjust it to my brother's figure. There was something about the armscye that just was not lying right. In hindsight, I don't think it was the pattern, rather the specifics of my brother's figure, as I had similar issues with the pattern I ended up using. I settled on a very old Burda Style pattern from a magazine from 2006. I bought the magazine over six years ago when I was subscribed to Burda Magazine. I asked German Canadian News, who I used for subscription service, if they had any old issues I could purchase. They did and I ended up buying random old issues all the way down to 2005. Since I was looking purely for patterns, I didn't care what language the issues were published in. As you can see the magazine I used the coat pattern from was a French issue from October 2006! Needless to say, I did not use the instructions since they did not make sense at all. By the way if anyone is interested to subscribing to Burda Magazine, German Canadian News distributes them throughout Canada and GLP News manages subscriptions throughout US. The coat pattern we chose is a more or less basic peacoat pattern with a standing collar, two front panels and a seam down the center back. I particularly loved having five seams for the body of the coat, as it makes fitting so much easier. I was able to take excess volume throughout the seams very easily. My brother really wanted welted pockets rather than inseam pockets the original coat pattern provided for. So I drafted my own pocket pieces to accommodate that. We also omitted the belt. I can't imagine my brother having a belted coat at all... The construction was very straight forward as far as sewing a coat goes. After we finalized the muslin and I cut the coat out of the fashion fabric, we had a couple more fittings just to make sure we were on track with the fit. I really wanted my brother to have a coat that fits him and he is happy about. By the way, the fabric is melton wool that I purchased at Fabric Land. It is a pretty good coating mix with 80% wool. I think there are better coating fabrics out there, but this is still a great coating material. I must say the buttons stalled me for a bit. I want to blame them for the delay that left me putting the coat aside last spring, but let's be honest, buttons are not to blame. I was worried about making buttonholes on my machine. Granted I have a new machine that should produce amazing buttonholes, but my old machine which was still a pretty great machine has been known to botch buttonholes on thick coating and I was worried this one will too just due to the thickness of fabric, and I really wanted this coat to be well put together. This fall, when the time came to finally finish the coat, I decided to give bound buttonholes a try. I must say, this was a great choice on my part. The buttonholes came out beautifully and the coat now has that high end look. I feel that all the hard work that went into making the buttonholes was well worth it in the end. Once the buttonholes were finished, the rest of the coat came together smoothly. We decided that a hidden pocket would be a nice addition, and I added two inside pockets that close with an invisible zipper set in the seam between facing and lining. There is a pocket on each side of the front. The pockets are big enough to hold a phone or a wallet and zip up nicely so that the things stay put and don't get lost. I could not be happier with how the coat turned out! I feel like I've put a lot of good work into it. I really tried so hard with every single seam, all the finishings and details. I feel like I put a lot of my heart and love into it. It is such an amazing feeling to see your make on the person you love and care about! My brother is very happy with the coat. He said he will wear it to work the very next day. He also looked so happy examining the seams and asking me why I did things the way I did them when he came over for fittings. It was such a great experience! Honestly, seeing how happy he is wearing the coat makes me want to make all the things for him. Hopefully next time it won't take over a year! Love, Anya

I love Fall. I don’t think I am alone in this. Lately I seem to hear a lot about the beauty of Fall colors and the excitement of seasons changing. I don’t think Fall signifies the end of Summer or some kind of an end, to me Fall brings buzz of new beginnings and opportunities. Then of course there are Fall fashions, which is an inspiring category of its own. I enjoy thinking about transition of seasons and the exciting changes it means for my wardrobe. I feel exhilarated and inspired when I start contemplating all the sewing and wardrobe planning I get to do for the upcoming colder seasons. Oh, the possibilities and all the new cozy fabrics I hopefully will get to add to my collection... This Fall is no different. It really got me thinking about my style, where I am going with it and what I want to make to fill those holes in my wardrobe. By the way, am I the only one who seems to have these wardrobe holes that just never go away no matter what you do? Am I doing something wrong? I feel like every time I get rid of “one hole” in my wardrobe the other one pops up… As the temperatures started to drop over the last few weeks, one of the pieces that was on my mind is a long, cozy coatigan. I spent what seemed like countless hours amassing a small collection of inspiration images on my Pinterest board, which was really hard to narrow down to just a few inspiration photos. Still in the end I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted. I seemed to sway back and forth between a cozy oversized look and simple, straight lined and overall more fitted look. The only things I was sure of were that I wanted the coatigan to be grazing my knees, have side slits, welt pockets, and be either of gray or camel color. At last I decided to go with the loose cozy fit and I am have not regretted it so far. I find I feel more comfortable and confident in roomy, oversized pieces, especially when I combine them with something more fitted or sleek, like these skinny jeans and boots. I think this coatigan turned out to be very versatile. I will wear it as a coat during the warmer Fall months and when the colder weather hits, I can easily throw it on under a warmer coat. In my search for the perfect pattern to match my vision I wound up drafting my own pattern out of a sweater pattern I already had. I have been really interested in pattern drafting lately and have been trying to draft patterns when I can. Yet after all the time I spend drafting the thing, I feel that my final pattern is VERY close to Esme Coatigan by Named Patterns. My sleeve is a little different, my coatigan has welt pockets and side vents, and my facing is wider. Oh well, it was a good exercise in pattern drafting! For fabric I used absolutely sumptuous DKNY wool mélange boucle knit. This fabric was just perfect for the coatigan I dreamt of. It is a medium weight and the weave is very tight resulting in nice drape and just a touch of stretch. The fabric also doesn’t fray, so I didn’t even have to finish the raw edges if I didn’t want to. I alternated in between my sewing machine and serger to put the coatigan together. Although I anticipated to serge most of the seams and press them to one side, I ended up sewing almost all the seams with a straight stitch and pressing them open, mainly to prevent the bulk and allow for construction of my side slits, which, by the way, have mitered corners! When I was buying the fabric, the only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted the coatigan to fall to my knees. So I completely guesstimated my fabric purchase. I bought 2.75 yards thinking that it surely will be enough. Well, I didn’t look to see the width of the fabric which was clearly displayed. The fabric was only 50” wide. I panicked just a little when I started to place my pattern pieces on the fabric, but with some patience and some creativity I managed to cut all my pieces out without too much trouble! I didn’t have ANY fabric leftover other than some small scraps that I tested my stitches on prior to sewing. In the process of cutting the coatigan out I decided to cut the front band pieces with one long side against the fabric’s selvage edge. I did it partially to get some extra yardage and partially to see if I can end up with cleaner finish on the inside of the coatigan. It was not necessary at all, but why not go all the way? Here are the steps on how I did it: At this point the body of my coatigan was already assembled and the coatigan was hemmed. The only thing that was left to do was to attach the front band. I pressed the front band together, wong sides facing each other, prior to sewing it onto the body of the coatigan so that the selvage edge was overlapping the cut edge by about 3/8”. This created a nice guideline for the fold and made things a lot easier down the road. Then I unfolded the band and sewed the cut off edge to the body of the coatigan, matching right sides and notches. I pressed the seam allowance towards the band. Next I finished the bottoms of the band. I folded band at the bottom of the fronts, right sides together against the fold I created in the first step, making sure the selvage edge of the fabric is extended about 3/8” beyond the vertical seam of the front band. Pinned the short ends to the band and sewed them, ensuring my stitching line is a nice continuation of the already hemmed body of the coatigan. I trimmed the seam allowance, clipped the corner, turned it out and gave it a good press. This resulted in a very nice clean finish of the bottom of the front band. Following the fold guideline I created in the very first step, I folded the band over to the wrong side. The extra 3/8” I left allowed me to cover the pressed seam allowance really nicely. I pinned everything together and hand stitched the band to the coatigan. I could have used a blind stitch on my machine, or stitched in the ditch of the seam, but I really wanted concealed finish, and this fabric hid my hand stitching so well, it is pretty much invisible. I have to add that I hate hand sewing, but it was very enjoyable on this fabric! There is something about wool and working with it that just brings me so much joy. On that note I am going to head back to sewing headquarters to finish my brother’s coat. Yes, the same one I mentioned in Spring. I am still working on it and he is not happy about it. He insists I have to finish it by this winter, says that it was supposed to be done last winter when I first promised it. May be it was the winter before that, I don’t remember anymore. I just don’t understand where he gets all this selfishness from… Love, Anya

Hello! It has been a while... Things got really busy at the end of the summer with the wedding happening in early September and I took a long break from social media and blogging. I didn't stop sewing though. As a matter of fact I was slip stitching one of my bridesmaids dresses the night before the wedding while visiting with friends and family. It's normal and everyone does it, right?... I'll go more into those details in some other post. I am still taking a little bit of a break and easing myself back into blogging and social media, but for now I am back with an exciting new make - this rayon Melilot Shirt I sewed up for Sew Your Hart Out September hosted by Harts Fabrics. This is my first time participating in this event and I couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of it. If you want to read more about my make head on over to Harts Fabrics Blog, and while you are at it read up on other fun and inspiring makes other participants have come up with! Until next time, Anya

Guys, I am so excited about this dress! I don't even know where to start this blog post. Let's just get it out there in the open, this dress is THE BOMB. I love it so much! You can just see how happy I get when I am wearing it. I feel like a princess and I want to twirl, dance and smile non stop, and I took these photos at 7 am in the morning... So yeah, I am more than happy with it! Ok, now that I've declared my never-ending love for the dress, lets get down to the details of how it came to be. I was contacted by Isabelle a few months back when she was wondering if I would be interested in participating in blog tour for La Maison Victor, a Belgian sewing magazine. At the time the magazine was only available in French and was sold only to European sewists. Isabelle was in the process of expanding the magazine not only to English speaking audience, but also to other continents! How cool is that? Even though I knew the timeline interfered with my wedding coming up in early September (No, I am not stressed! You are!...) I knew I had to participate. My love for sewing magazines goes way back to my childhood. Before I even could hold a needle or knew how to do simple hand stitching I would lie on the couch perusing my mom's sewing magazines, imagining all the things I would like to make one day. I have a big stash of Burda sewing magazines, and I gave up my subscription to it a few years back after discovering indie sewing community and indie patterns. I still love Burda, but I find with my stash years and years worth of magazines their new designs just do not excite me. Now, along comes La Maison Victor. I've heard about the magazine before, but I never really explored it. I really liked their designs but somehow I never bought any patterns. I received the Summer issue of the magazine early prior to it's release in North America, to help me get ready for this blog tour. I was so excited when I got it in the mail!! I flipped through it right away and I couldn't part with it. The magazine even made an early camo appearance in my Suki Robe tester photos... The magazine itself is very beautiful. It is printed on high quality paper and is full of gorgeous and inspiring photos. I love looking at pretty pictures and they don't have to be photos of garments or outfits. I find that simple and beautiful photos of almost anything can inspire me. It's something about lines, color combinations and the overall feel of them. The magazine definitely provided me with inspiration boost! There are patterns for everyone. This issue of La Mason Victor came with a total of 9 patterns, 4 of them are sewing patterns for women, 2 for kids, 1 for a baby and 1 for men. There is even a knitting pattern for a women's sweater! Besides patterns the magazine also includes a few crafting projects. Just look at this fabulous flower crown. I am will be saving this tutorial for future use. The flower crown looks so beautiful. I am not even a flower crown kind of girl, but looking at it I want one. I can get away with wearing one to the office, right? All the patterns come with the magazine. They are printed on good quality paper, not tissue paper, yay! You do have to trace them out though. The patterns are printed on both sides of three sheets total and pattern pieces overlap. For those who have seen Burda magazine patterns, this is nothing like that! You can clearly see each pattern piece and tracing them out is a breeze. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that the pattern pieces do not include seam allowances, so they need to be added once the pattern is traced. I can see how it would be an issue for some, but I really do not mind it. I actually like that I can add my own preferred seam and hem allowance. This way I can even vary it! Like add 1/4" for the neckline instead of 5/8", or something. Besides I like having actual stitching lines drawn into the pattern pieces, this way if I was to make any hacks, everything I need to start off with is already there. The instructions have pictures to follow along and are quite thorough. I didn't follow the instructions for Flo Dress fully though. I ended up interlining, boning and lining my dress, so I skipped the instructions right after I figured out the pattern pieces and cutting guidelines. Now, let's get back to the dress... I originally wanted to chose something that other participants weren't making, just so that I can help show off the magazine in it's full light. When I was choosing the pattern, Flo Dress has not been picked by anyone yet. So Flo it was! I feel that it couldn't have worked out better. Flo Dress ended up being the perfect dress I didn't know I needed. Right as I was about to start making it, I realized I didn't have a dress to wear to my stagette, and since I didn't have time to make two I decided that Flo would be the one. I originally envisioned Flo Dress in printed flowery cotton, just like in the magazine, so it took me a bit of time to come around to liking the off white cotton satin I chose for it. The fabric came from my stash and I must have had it for years. After I decided to make Flo for my stagette, I started thinking of how I want to make sure it is comfortable, stays up and looks good. After some research I realized I would need to interface, interline the bodice and bone it as well. I also wanted to be able to go bra-less so that my bra straps are not showing. To accommodate for it I knew I would want to sew in bra cups into the dress. And because I like to complicate things, I also decided that I would add a waist stay to help my dress stay up. So there, a simple blog tour turned into a more or less major dress project. Astonishingly, it didn't take long to make. I started off with making a quick muslin for the bodice. I knew the skirt would fit no matter what just because it is so flared, so the bodice was the only place where I needed to iron out any issues. To my surprise, the bodice fit almost perfectly right off the bat! I had to take it in by 1/4" right under the bust and that's it! Thinking about it after, I think fitting this bodice would not be hard because there are 7 pieces to the bodice, meaning there are all together 7 short seams and any fit adjustments are easy to accommodate because of it. I cut out each of my bodice pieces 4 times. That was a lot of cutting and marking! Thankfully the pattern pieces are so small it didn't take long and wasn't too annoying. I cut out one set of bodice out of my fashion fabric, one out of lining, and one out of stiff off white cotton I ended up using for interlining, and finally I cut them all out out of interfacing. I interfaced my fashion fabric, and I interlined my lining by basing stiff interlining pieces to lining and treating them as one form there on. I assembled my bodice and interlined lining separately and pressed all seams open. Then I attached boning to the lining from the inside to every seam except for the center back seam where zipper would go. The boning pieces are centered over each seam, so my lining looks topstitched from the inside. To make the bodice even stiffer, I attached two more pieces of boning in a "v" shape going from right under the bust and meeting at center front waist. I also changed my straps from bra straps recommended in the magazine to simple 3/4" wide fabric straps. I figured out the length I needed once I tried one the bodice before attaching the lining to it. I did not only add a waist stay, I went above and beyond by hiding it inside the bodice. I couldn't find petersham ribbon wide enough so I used twill tape instead. It worked okay, but I am wondering if petersham ribbon would be better. I made big button holes at each back bodice for the waist stay to come out so I can hook it together at the back. Finally once the dress was fully assembled, I attached the bra cups to the inside by hand. I ended up trimming them because they were a little too big for the dress so that is why they are serged. I also think they look slightly more "finished" like that. That was a super quick explanation of how I assembled the dress. If you want a full blown tutorial on how to make a stiff, boned bodice like that, do let me know and I will make sure to put one together. Well, I'll make sure to add it to my list of tutorials I need to finish once the wedding is done and I have more time. I love the way this dress turned out! I didn't anticipate liking it this much. Thinking about it now, I definitely want to make another version in floral cotton, just like I originally planned. Well now that you've got all the way down to the end of this blog post, you must be wondering how you can get your hands on La Maison Victor. I am so excited to tell you that the magazine is sold throughout Canada in many different stores. So many in fact that I couldn't simply list them in this post and I had to attach a separate PDF document with the full list. I will certainly be on the look out for new issues from now on! On that note, I shall go back into hiding and working hard on finalizing this upcoming wedding. Wishing everyone an amazing rest of the summer! Love, Anya

I am back with a final sewing tutorial for An Orla Affair. I know, I know... I am behind. It is already August 2, and I was supposed to have it up last week... I apologize for that. July has been crazy busy with wedding plans in full swing, numerous family vacations planned and busy work, yet I really wanted to contribute as much as I could to this cause. I guess better late than never! You can read the instructions on how I hacked the pattern for Orla Dress into this shirt dress here. As I've mentioned in one of my earlier posts about this dress, this was the most involved hack out of all Orla hacks I've made this month. Because I added a standing collar to the pattern, sewing is also a little bit more involved. Okay, let's jump in! I assume that you already have all your pattern pieces cut out. Main Fabric front bodice x 2 back bodice x 1, on fold yoke x 2, on fold collar stand x 2, on fold collar x 2, on fold sleeve x 2 front skirt x 1, on fold back skirt x 1, on fold (you can simply cut off 1 cm seam allowance along the center back seam line or leave as it and just gather the entire thing as one piece) Interfacing collar stand x 1, on fold collar x 1, on fold 2 strips of interfacing 3/4" wide and as long as your front bodice to interface button stands In this tutorial white means wrong side of the fabric and gray is the right side of the fabric. Prep Interface wrong side of one collar stand and one collar piece. Iron on strips of interfacing onto wrong side of both bodice pieces, 3/4" away from the front edge. Bodices and Yoke After you have ironed on interfacing onto front bodice pieces, press the center front edges to the inside by 1 1/2". Fold the raw edges under and press again, creating a 3/4" wide button stand. Topstitch close to the fold. Repeat for the other front bodice. Sew darts on both front bodice pieces and back bodice piece. Press them towards center front and back, respectively. With right sides together pin one yoke piece to back bodice. Stitch 1/4" away from the edge. Flip the bodice so that the wrong side is facing you and pin the other yoke piece with right side of the yoke facing the wrong side of the bodice. Stitch with 3/8" seam allowance making sure you are catching all three layers of fabric. Grade seam allowances and press the yokes up, encasing the seam in between them. Topstitch close to the seam. Flip the yokes open again and, with right sides facing, pin the outside yoke to the front bodice pieces at the shoulder seams, making sure the right side of front bodice pieces is facing the right side of the back bodice. Stitch 1/4" away from the raw edge. Next we will use burrito method to finish attaching the yoke to the front bodice. Arrange the bodice pieces so that the wrong side of the back bodice facing you and the front bodice pieces are laying under the back bodice, as in the illustration above. Roll both front and back bodices in away from you, under the yokes. Flip the top yoke open, if you haven't already done so, see illustration below. Flip the lower yoke again, away from you and under the rolled bodice pieces, so it encloses the rolled bodices in between the yoke pieces. Pin yoke shoulders, sandwiching the front bodice in between the two yokes. Stitch with 3/8" seam allowance. Grainline Studio has a great video tutorial on this method here. Grade seam allowances and carefully pull bodice pieces out and press. Topstitch front parts of the yoke close to the seam. Press again. With right sides facing, pin side seams of bodices and stitch. My fabric was quite thin, so I finished my seam allowances together and pressed them to the back. Otherwise, I recommend finishing seam allowances before stitching side seams, and then pressing them open. Collar Place two collar pieces on top of each other and pin the outside edges. Sew. Clip corners and grade seam allowances. Turn the collar out and press. Topstitch and give it another press. Pin the collar stands to each side of the collar with right sides facing each other. The collar will be sandwiched in between the two collar stands. Note that interfaced collar stand should lie against non-interfaced collar. Sew along the curved edge. Clip into curved corners, turn to the ride side and press. Attaching Collar to the Bodice With the right side of the bodice facing you, pin the interfaced side of the collar stand to the neckline, matching all the notches. Stitch from one collar stand seam to the other. Clip into the seam allowance on the curved parts and press the seam up to the inside of the collar stand. To enclose the ends of the collar stand I am using the method used in Grainline Archer shirt. I really love how it provides a really clean finish! Jen has a great video tutorial on how she did it here. But you can try to figure it out with my drawings... Place the dress bodice so that the wrong side of the dress is facing you and the collar is laying underneath it. Roll the bodice in towards the collar seam allowance. Roll the collar in towards the collar seam allowance as well. This will be a little bit bulky, but that is alright, as we will only be stitching for about 1 -1 1/2". Flip the collar stand around the collar and the rolled bodice, matching the neckline seam. Starting at the front of the collar stand stitch as far as you can along the neckline. Trim the corners and turn right side out. Repeat for the other side. Again, you can see the amazing video tutorial from Grainline on this method here. Turn the dress so that the wrong side is facing you. Flip the rest of the inside collar stand under and pin. Topstitch around the collar stand. I like to start around one of the shoulders and work my way around. This way I get a nicer finish with no visible backstitches at the edges of the collar stand. This is where I would try the bodice on, mark a button hole right at the bust line and then space the rest of the button holes ~3"-3 1/2" apart. I ended up having 6 button holes, including one in the collar stand. Work your button holes. You can also sew buttons on here or wait until you are fully done with the dress. Unfortunately I forgot to create an illustration for this, but I hope it is pretty self explanatory. Sleeves Before I do anything else with the sleeves I like to press the hem up. Since the sleeve is flat at this point it helps to create a nice even hem guideline. Stitch two lines of gathering stitches between the notches on the sleeve head. The first line of stitches should be 1/4" away from the edge and the second line 3/8" away from the first line. Note that gathering stitches are the longest stitch on your sewing machine. Leave long tails on the stitches for the ease of gathering. Flip your pressed hem open and pin the sleeve seams together. Sew and press seam allowances open. TIP: this is also where I like to hem the sleeves. Since they are not attached to the dress at this point it is a lot easier to hem them without the bulk of the dress being in the way. Gently pull on both bobbin threads from the one side to form the gathers in the sleeve head. With right sides facing each other, pin the sleeve to bodice, matching notches at front underarm and shoulder seam. Distribute the gathers evenly and neatly so that the sleeve head fits and there are no visible tucks. Sew. Finish seam allowances together and gently press them towards the bodice. Pockets and Skirt If you would like to add pockets to your dress, you can check out how I drafted them here, and sewed them here. Scroll down to Pocket and Skirt heading for instructions, under which you can also find instructions on how to attach the skirt to your dress. They are pretty much identical, except the only difference is that in this dress there is no center back seam and you will be attaching the skirt in the round. I really hope you find this tutorial helpful! I know I have rushed through it a little more than I wanted to, but I really wanted to get it out to you. If you do notice any inconsistencies whatsoever or feel like any graphics could be clearer, please let me know and I will fix them. Thank you for hanging out with me during this Orla month. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Now I am off to finally go through all the beautiful Orlas without feeling rushed. Love, Anya