Project 52 - Week 14 - Making a Bean Bag for Little Bird

This task is one that I've had in mind to do for at least a year now.  I had the fabric I wanted to use which had been a homemade curtain for Little Bird's bedroom when she was in the small bedroom, now my sewing room.  I wanted to re-purpose it as it was the right colour to go with the quilt I made her at Christmas i.e. purple, a colour that she likes at the moment.

When I say I wanted to make her a bean bag, my version was more of a bean filled floor cushion, not the round kind you see in the shops.  A very simple construction that I was going to sew with an extra strong wax coated thread. 

I'd put it off for a while, as it was going to cost at least £15 to buy some beanbag filling and I couldn't quite justify it with the expense of Christmas and her birthday and everything, but then I had a spot of luck and found an old bean bag in the charity shop for just £6.  It wasn't much to look at, but was large (i.e. adult sized) and had lots of filling inside it, which was perfect for what I needed. 

Originally, I decided I was going to just put it inside the floor cushion cover as it was, but as it was a completely different shape this didn't really work, so I decided to transfer the polystyrene beads from one bag to the other.  I thought I could do it without making too much mess but yes you've guessed it, it was a disaster.  (You did warn me Penny, I should have listened!) 

After a very short time the sewing room floor was completely covered in the things.  It looked like it had snowed indoors.  They were sticking to my socks, slippers, trousers, the bed, everything.  Whilst I pinned and sewed up the bean bag, Little Bird tried to help by shovelling up the polystyrene beads from the floor, without much success.  Once the rest of the beads were successfully contained in the bean bag/floor cushion, I joined her making equally little progress, so finally I gave in and out came the vacuum cleaner.  Thank goodness for this amazing invention.  It made super light work of it.  I'm hoping I've not completely jammed it up with them, but to be honest I was just glad they had been cleared up.

I've double sewn all the seams of the floor cushion and along the edge that I sewed after filling it, I've also hand sewn some binding on as an extra measure.  I'm pleased with the outcome, but am just hoping it doesn't get jumped on from a height and burst open again.   Here's a couple of pictures of the finished floor cushion/bean bag. 

 

 

It'll make a nice place to sit and read a book, use the laptop or just listen to music, but I've warned Little Bird to treat it with a bit of TLC.

Joining in with Dreamer at Living a Slow and Simple Life in her Project 52 challenge to complete a task every week for a year.