Doll Couch - Adventures in Crafting

There is a reason why the description of this blog is .." an adventure in crafting".. versus "expert advice in crafting."

I purchased a pdf file pattern from Liberty Jane Patterns for the soft cushy square couch that fits an American Girl Doll or 18" doll.  I am thinking no problem.  I have been sewing for a little while.  I took Home Economics back in 7th grade so technically, I have 22 years of sewing experience under my belt going into this blog.  Truthfully, I have only made curtains, lengthened curtains, a bad dress and some pillows but my mother is a seamstress --- so like mental illness...it should be genetic, right?  Well, I must be the generation it skipped because I lack strong skills in that area.  I have made several projects from actual patterns that I purchased through JoAnns but I haven't made anything from a downloaded pattern yet.

After purchasing the pattern, I printed it off.  I am looked at the pieces marked Back Rest A and Back Rest B tried to figure out what they meant by tape B to A... tape what to A??? the fabric.    Thinking that I was too tired to focus on the pattern, I went to bed and in hopes that a rested mind would help, I set out to tackle the project at 5:45 am and still to my dismay had nothing except two pieces of stuffed, sewed up fabric that looked like this....

It was too early to call my Mom, the seamstress.  I decided to do the next best thing and get a little help from my friends... well technically not real friends because I have never met them but my online BFFs at Craft Cafe... within moments in the wee hours of my morning, I was slapping my head like an idiot when one of the other sew savvy posters told me that I needed to literally tape the pattern paper pieces together because the desired piece was too big to have printed out on an 8x10 sheet of paper.  She was even kind enough to draw me an illustration.

Because of my gaff in creating this couch, I had to get creative and scrounge around for usable fabric.  This is a good time to mention that old clothing can be re-purposed and not into just cleaning rags.  An old shirt with a small stain can be crafted into many other things besides a pretty filler for a landfill.  I needed more fabric and fast!  I didn't want to go to the craft store and by more fabric, I just wanted to move on from the whole couch experience.  I decided to use my daughter's old tank top as fill-in material for the section I didn't account for needing when I started making the couch.

As a result, the underside is slightly wonky and a little imperfect.  If I would have realized that the first set of  rectangles I cut out wasn't the bottom, the top back bar would have been polka-dot and the seat area of the couch the plaid print... but crafting is never perfect, right?!?!

In addition to finishing the couch with the re-purposed shirt material, I was able to use some of the extra material to create matching pillows that turned out nice.  If you learn anything from this particular blog remember this, cute patterned shirts come in handy and when they say tape on a downloaded file pattern it literally means tape it to the referenced pattern piece!