One of the most popular pins on my Pinterest Crafty Sewing Ideas board is the little chicken bean bags.  So I thought that it was about time I had a go at making one.

I’ve gone back on what I said in a previous post about not using the rubber-stamp designed fabric.  I printed some off to make my bean bag, based on the one on gluesticksblog.com.

How to make your bean bag

You need a piece of fabric about 14cms by 26cms.  The actual size isn’t critical – you’ll just make a bigger or smaller chicken!  You also need scraps of red and orange felt and toy stuffing and rice to fill it.

Cut out the felt pieces. The beak is orange, the other 2 pieces are red.  You need 1 of each. 

Lay your fabric out lengthways right side up, and position the felt pieces in the top RH corner.

Fold the bottom of the fabric to the top and pin to keep the felt pieces in place.  Stitch top and right side, leaving left side open.

Turn right side out. Add an eye. You can embroider this, sew on a felt eye or use a sharpie pen.  You could use a stick-on or sew-on eye, but these are probably not so good for a bean bag, especially if it's likely to be used by a child.

Fill 1/3 with toy stuffing and 1/3 with rice or small beans. Leave the rest open to allow room to close the bottom.

If you stitch the opening together with the edges square, your bean bag will be flat, rather than a pyramid shape.  You will be able to stand it up but not as succesfully. 

To make it pyramid-shaped, line up your seams so that the side seam lies flat as the back of the chicken. The front seam where the beak is and the back seam will line up, with the seam in the middle of the opening, rather than at the side.   Turn under raw edges and pin closed.  Hand stitch the seam.

These are very quick and easy to make - a good project for a beginner sewer of any age and a good use of scraps.