The start

My daughter loves American Girl, she has two  girls, Poppy & Lily. Whenever my husband goes to New York for work (which is a lot) he brings back an American Girl catalogue. Ella will sit for ages going through the catalogue, I have taught her to mark what she likes & turns the corner of the page. Yes I am a catalogue lover too, especially christmas ones. Now Ella understands that she can't have everything from the catalogue, but let's just say that these girls have a better wardrobe than me.

At the beginning of this year I found some dress patterns that would fit Lily & Poppy, Ella was very excited & I was looking forward to starting a new project. How hard could it be? I took Ella & she picked the material & the lace. We went home I laid it all out on the dining room table. I placed the material down & pinned the pattern on to it & then began to cut. I had all the pieces & was sat very proudly at the table when my Mum came over for dinner. She politely explained to me that I had not cut enough material for the seams. My answer to this was "but I followed the pattern". Apparently patterns have a code all of their own & if you are new to it, there is no way that you will know this. So a funny little arrow pointing in one direction, was not a cut here arrow, but something entirely different.

My Mum patiently gave me some pattern cutting lessons, while recutting some of that pattern (thankfully I had bought plenty of material). She managed to salvage some other bits. She then looked at me & asked if I would like her to finish it. Let's just say the dress came back a couple of days later, perfectly finished.

Now I am not going to let this first attempt put me off, Ella has been through a new catalogue & has found an American Girl apron for Lily & Poppy. Now my lovely husband has said that he would buy it on his next trip, but I have said,"how hard can it be to make an apron?" So my new project is to make Lily & Poppy an apron each. So the search begins now to find a pattern & if I can't find a pattern I am going to have to make one. So it begins!