AAARRRRRRRR. Old hat.

Ok, so maybe it's lazy to do another bean bag post, but I have made another one, so why not eh?!

This time, the bean bag was for Joshua, and this is how it went...

Go to fabric shop to find fabric.
Fail to find it and resort to asking shop lady.
Follow shop lady to the (very) limited selection of kiddie fabric, but breathe a huge sigh of relief on discovering that there is some pirate fabric.
When asked how much you want, think to yourself, "oops, should probably have thought about this" and ask for three metres as a wild guess.
Thank the lady kindly when she gives you an extra end bit.
(I'll now skip ahead to the 'making' bit, so you don't have the whole day)
Think, "why bother with circles and trapeziums (see last bean bag), surely squares and rectangles will do"
Cut out two squares the same size. (If you're a 'details' kinda person, you might be interested to know mine were 70 cm square, but that's only because the fabric was 140cm wide and I didn't want to be wasteful)
Cut out four rectangles which have two sides the same length as the square sides. (again, 'details' - the other sides were about 56 cm. And when I say 'about' I really mean it - more of that later)
Start pinning bits together.
I pinned two bits to the top square first (I reckoned the top one was the more important to get right - if your fabric's got a right way up and a wrong way up, make sure it's the right way up)
Sew the bits on.
Realise that one of the bits you've just sewn onto the top square is, sadly, the bottom square.
Curse your own ineptitude
Turn your back briefly on your three-year-old (yes, I had my 'helper' again) only to turn back round and discover he's just cut one of the rectangles into bits. And yes, it was the one I'd already sewn on.
Chastise child (I'm not going into details here!)
Unpick shredded rectangle from top square. (Cursing child)
Unpick bottom square from top square. (Cursing yourself)
Realise you have lunch guests coming.
Do lunch (meanwhile, child, in his grief, has fallen asleep for an early nap)
Head back upstairs after lunch and look forlornly at shredded (and now unpicked) rectangle.
Vow that this can be redeemed.
Find cushion in cupboard that's just the right size.
Trim off all 'shredded' bits of the rectangle.
Turn shredded bean bag rectangle into new-life cushion cover with a quick run on the machine.
Wake child to show him your cushiwork, make up after the early disagreements and play.
(Skipping ahead again)
Start over with the pinning.
Realise you could have used two rectangles rather than four, and not bothered cutting them in half. (Depending on mood, either smile or feel glum about this)
Start sewing.
Make sure you get a zip in there somewhere (I did it between the bottom and one side)
Wonder why you weren't more careful with your measuring, as the corners now don't really match up very well at all.
Steal the inside of another bean bag (otherwise the beans will all fall out of the corners that, as mentioned, haven't really worked...)
Fill the bean bag. Bear in mind that if you overfill a bean bag, you end up sitting on top of it, rather than sinking into it as you should!

Show bean bag to child.
Be thankful that he's thankful. (On that note, he's rather gone off Charlie and Lola - it's all Fireman Sam at the moment - if he thinks I'm doing another painting on his wall, he's got another think coming!)

If you're feeling adventurous, try out this once you're done.

Has bean bag, will blog.

Well, it's not the cushions I promised, neither is it the 'other thing' I mentioned in the last-but-one blog, but it is a bean bag.

Here's how:
Buy a whole loads of those minuscule white balls to put in bean bags.
Buy some end-of-line fabric (£2.99 a metre!).
Have a look at a bunch of bean bags and wonder which design is easiest.
Conclude it's the one with the least sewing.


(These are not precise measurements...)
Cut out two trapeziums (Base 90cm, one vertical side (i.e., the sides are at right-angles to the base) 65cm, the other 35 cm. This leaves about a 95cm diagonal at the top.)
The easiest way to do this is cut a rectangle 90cm by 100cm, then cut a diagonal line across it (make sure you cut it the right way) It would be much easier if I drew it, but I can't be bothered. These sides need to be sewn together back and front (not top and bottom!), so that the front is 35cm high, the back 65cm. (Obviously, you'll need to have the outside bits of the fabric (if applicable) facing each other. You'll notice from the photo how beautifully the fabric matches up at the seam.

Use your high school maths knowledge to work out the diameter of the circle needed for the top of your bean bag. (It's circumference divided by pi [pi is 3.14ish]) So if you've got a circumference of about 186 (which you would have if you double 95 and allow for a bit of seam) then you'd have a diameter of 60cm. Measure this out on the fabric (If you're like me, you'll spend ages cursing the fact that you bought a repeating fabric that's got the wrong distance between repeats and is thus a nightmare to figure out).
Pin the circle to the sides. I took three attempts at this, because I hadn't measured quite right, so I kept ending up with a big fold at the end of my pinning line. (Make sure you've pinned it the right way)
Sew the circle to the sides.

Wonder how you're going to do the bottom, which needs a zip.
Decide to do it by sewing a whole bunch of bits together and then chopping them into a circle (make sure it's the right size - it's pi time again!)
Spend about 40 minutes trying to figure out how to sew a zip in.
Figure out a way of doing it that probably isn't right, but seems to have worked anyhow. (I sewed two bits together, then sewed the zip onto the two bits, then unpicked the original seam so that the zip actually worked.)

(At this point my machine broke. I don't know what went wrong, but the thread kept gathering underneath and the machine made unhappy noises (it is 73 years old...). After reading the (73 year old and thus slightly dog-eared) manual and fiddling with the machine for about 20 minutes, I managed to stop it being broken. I wouldn't say I fixed it, as such ... but it lasted the rest of the job, and hopefully will live to sew another day.)

Sew the bottom to the rest (keep it all inside it)
I'd suggest undoing the zip before you sew the bottom to the sides. I didn't and then had to work out how to undo the zip, which was on the inside!

Admire your work.

Get loads of bean-bag filling and stick it in (I used a lining which I'd stolen from another bean-bag).

Wish you'd taken some 'during' photos.

Restock all the bean bags in the house with the leftover bean-bag filling.

Sit on your creation for a while and enjoy the extreme satisfaction.



Take some 'completed project' photos.

Blog it.