this is the story of how aunt maggie won christmas.

december 2012: my nieces were incredibly into their american girl dolls or rather they were incredibly into those babies made by the american girl doll company. yes just about everything these girls did revolved around tweedy and mister dolly. (you read that right, mister dolly is what etta named her doll. in terms of cuteness that's right up there with how she calls vic 'aunt vic' or 'uncle vicky').

some background: as the youngest of three girls (with three older female cousins to boot) there wasn't much i did or played with that hadn't already been done or played with before, except american girl dolls. neither of my sisters had them so it was exclusively a maggie thing. from the moment i got molly for my sixth birthday no other could compare. my friend greta and i would spend hours playing nanny with our dolls. when santa brought addy as a total surprise for christmas a year and a half later it was, without a doubt, one of the happiest memories of my childhood.

so when my sister mentioned my nieces wanted dolly ergos for christmas i was on it. i used the baby doll ergo pattern by 3beansstudio and quilting cotton from gather here in cambridge, massachusetts.

when santa didn't deliver any dolly ergos during their celebration in pdx my sister wisely explained that in life you don't always get what you want and santa probably had his reasons.

when we celebrated in michigan and there were still no ergos from they were clearly disappointed. then i brought out a surprise last present and unparalleled excitement ensued.

needless to say the girls were elated with their new ergos.

it was, without a doubt, one of the happiest memories of my adult life.

two years later my other sister sammie was expecting her second child and requested an ergo for her daughter maya. pleased with how the first two ergos had come out i once again turned to the three bean studio pattern for maya's.

by this point i had amassed quite the fabric collection, so i used leftovers from the chevron dresses and lined it with teal polka dots from maya's second birthday tunic let me tell you getting those chevrons to match on the pocket was not easy.