I was so excited to discover Swedish design brand Ann Ringstrand via Instragram. I love her modern aesthetic and stylish designs. With many years in the fashion industry, Ann specialises in creating fashionable patterns for home sewing.

Ann's focus is on everyday fashion with good wearability and durability. She takes her inspiration from men’s fashion and old working clothes, combining modern design with traditional crafting. She is very fond of conventional “well-dressed” looks, but also mixes in influences from the street fashions of major cities.

The style is unisex, with a strong emphasis on classic tailoring and functional uniform details like pockets and linings. Her style is often described as Scandinavian minimalism with elements taken from international trends. To achieve a personal expression, Ann likes to combine modern design with traditional crafting. Her style is also influenced by her mum, who sewed, wove, quilted, and patched throughout her childhood.

For several years Ann ran the successful Swedish brand Hope, leaving in 2017 to set up a new design company in New York. In 2019 she was approached by The Swedish Publishing House Bonnier Fakta and returned to the world of fashion to create a book of home sewing with full scale paper patterns in her own signature style. 

Ann quickly discovered a gap in the market between the fashion industry and world of home sewing. She was also keen to address some of the environmental challenges within the fashion industry and embrace a more sustainable approach.

Her first book, Sew: 10 New Fashion Styles contains a collection of that you can sew for yourself. There are ten stylish key sewing patterns, including shirts, dresses, a kaftan, trousers, a blazer, and a coat. Included with the book are full-scale paper sewing patterns for you to trace off and use.

Following the success of Ann's award-winning first book, a follow up Sew: 10 Matching Key Styles for Your Wardrobe was published. Step by step, Ann guides you through the creation of a mini collection of your own, consisting of a coat, jacket, blazer, waistcoat, dress, skirt, two trousers, and two shirts.

This isn't just a sewing pattern book, it also contains lots of valuable advice around building a capsule collection of handmade clothes including how to select your colour palette and finding fabrics.

One of the many things that I love about these books, is that Ann gives design tips to the reader on how to style and wear your handmade piece of clothing. And with so many great styles to choose from I can't wait to get started....

We've been waiting patiently for our delivery of Workbook by Merchant & Mills to arrive, and we're really pleased to say that on looking through, it doesn't disappoint!!

As you would expect, this third book is beautifully photographed and illustrated throughout. However, what's important to note is that it isn't a beginners guide to sewing, it assumes you have a certain level of dressmaking skills to build on.

The aim of this book is to encourage the maker to try out and learn new skills, with the reward being a stylish multi-layer wardrobe which works all year round.

At the beginning of Workbook there's useful information about choosing cloth, The Merchant & Mills way is to work in natural, traditional fabrics - "Choose the right cloth for the job and buy the best you can afford" - and that's something that we wholeheartedly agree with here at The Draper's Daughter. 

They also encourage you to really think about what your own sense of style is, and that when dressmaking you should take time to explore different fabrics and discover which ones YOU really like - "Making your own wardrobe is not about economy but about having something that money cannot buy"

Workbook comes with full-size paper patterns for 6 totally new designs which are neatly packed into a card wallet on the inside front sleeve. Each project pattern is graded from size 8 to 18 with the exception of the Haremere Jacket which, because it's an oversized style, comes in just 3 sizes: small (8-10), medium (12-14) and large (16-18). The instructions, as with the other sewing patterns designed by Carolyn Denham, are really comprehensive and clear.

The new designs within Workbook include the following styles:

The Bantam is a casual, stylish loose-fitting vest with a boxer back detail, bound armholes and neckline; which can easily be adapted to make an effortlessly elegant dress.

The Curlew comes in three variations using two patterns. There's an elegant bias-cut, scoop necked, dress with extra long skinny sleeves and a curved back waist seam to give a very feminine silhouette. A sleeveless t-shirt which you can make from it's own separate pattern, this has a slightly higher neckline so that it can be worn under the dress and is just visible at the neckline. As you can see these styles have been really well thought through! Then finally The Curlew top is made from the t-shirt pattern with the dress pattern sleeves.

Next comes The Saltmarsh, this simple long-line skirt is gently gathered at the waist with a drawstring tie. The pattern has been made as a maxi length, but it can be cut to whatever length you choose!

The Heron is a bat-winged wrap top, with a shawl collar and a side tie fastening. This short sleeved style has an elegant silhouette with deep, open armholes for ease of movement.

 Next we have an oversized drop-shoulder jacket called The Haremere. It has a rolled shawl collar and front patch pockets.By extending the body pattern pieces the jacket can be beautifully lengthened to make a knee length, mid-season coat!

Finally, The Strides pattern makes a pair of straight, wide-legged trousers which can easily be shortened to create a neat pair of shorts!

There are also clear instructions for tracing off the patterns, this is really useful both as a way of preserving the original pattern, and it also means that you can use your patterns for more than one garment size.

We've found this book hugely inspiring, the photography makes it worthy of a coffee table book for the imagery alone, so the fact that you can make yourself an entire wardrobe of unique clothes makes it really good value for money.

We can't wait to start sewing!

Hello there,

To celebrate World Book Day we thought we'd share with you our favourite sewing book of the moment. A gift from one of our lovely friends it's the "Stylish Dress Book Simple Smocks, Dresses and Tops" by Yoshiko Tsukiori.

This book features an A to Z of contemporary dresses, tops and tunics. Using simple shapes, but with lovely design details including pin-tucking, lace trims, soft gathers and ruffles, smocking and embroidery, this book shows you how to craft and create your own unique stylish wardrobe!

 Each design is beautifully styled and photographed as you can see below:

Suitable for those with some sewing experience, this book comes complete with full-scale patterns, however you will need to trace these off for each design, and for each style there are simple step-by-step instructions and diagrams.



With 26 different garments to choose from this book is fabulous value and will help you to re-invent your wardrobe. There are so many lovely styles the difficulty is deciding which one to make first!!

Whichever one you decide on, happy sewing!