Did anyone else read ‘choose your own adventure’ books when they were growing up?  Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson?  Did anyone else spend months and months going back and forth through their book trying in vain to legitimately complete the Quest only to eventually capitulate, painstakingly leaf through each and every page to find ‘The End’ and then work back to find out what choices I, as the brave Amazonian warrior, should have made?  Just me?  Ha, well my self-drafted shift has been as frustrating as I found those books.

{Page 1}

You, brave seamstress, find yourself in the middle of the Liberty of London Fabric Sale do you:

A) Choose fabric wisely with specific projects in mind?

B) Dodge elbows and determined tourists and emerge with 5 different bundles of fabric that you ‘liked the look of’.

If you chose A) go to page 75 , if you chose B) go to page 43.

{Page 43}

With your 1 metre fabric lengths you decide to:

A) Utilise a tried and tested pattern.

B) Draft yourself a pattern despite never having drafted a pattern before.

If you chose A) go to page 84 , if you chose B) go to page 14.

{Page 14}

Once you have drafted a pattern you decide to:

A) Stick with a simple neckline that you know suits both you and the fabric.

B) Decide to experiment with a v-neck/collar placement.

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Oh my goodness.  You KNOW the rest.  At every point I chose B) the idiots option.  If only things were as simple as when I was in my early teens.  If only I could have skipped to the end of the Collar Quest and seen the results of a set of sensible decisions and worked backwards.  But no.  Despite desperate forays into ebay I ended up drafting myself a collar that I am mostly happy with, it’s more that a little assymetrical but then so am I.

I still love the material, and I’ve now got to the point where I’m can wear it without wanting to rip it off and start again.  It’s just that I promised myself so much more.

The brave seamstress reaches then end of her long and lonely Quest she chooses to:

A) Chillax, enjoy the fact that SHE MADE A DRESS.  Spend her day in soft-focus with soothing tunes.

B) Torture herself further with ‘things that went wrong’, viewing all that she sews in 3D HD with surround sound.

A)A)A)A)A)A)A)A)

What would you choose?

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