DIY Soft Toy for Bebe

I love the idea of making wee one her toys. I especially liked the idea when I was 40 weeks pregnant and slowly going insane waiting for baby! Here is a wee project I did while on baby watch! 

This project is to make a soft and bebe friendly fabric ball. I looked at a few tutorials on Pinterest, and liked some but didn't really get the small details. So I used a template from this site, and then just went with what I thought made sense. 

Here is my version of what to do:

You will need 6 wee oval/lens shaped bits of fabric. You could do this with scrap fabric or fat quarter pieces. Obviously it's best if the fabric coordinates, just so it looks nice! These ones Rob chose, and I think they look really good together! Plus they are nice basic contrasting colors which are great for babies eyesight development.

To start chose your desired size, chosen fabrics, and just to be tidy, give them a wee iron. 

Fold your fabric over the width of one template.

Pin your template to your fabric. That way you don't have to cut out it out twice. 

See!

Do this for each fabric.

Here's what you should have at the end of the pinning and cutting.

Pin your first two panels together.

If you have a fabric with a pattern, make sure you have the top side facing in when pinning and stitching each panel. And keep the direction consistent if it is different in one direction to another.

Stitch these together.

Next pin the third color/pattern panel To your first two. Again, pin the outside faces facing each other.

Stitch along this new seam.

When you are done with this, you should be able to fold it out into a half ball or bowl shaped object.

At this point you can either keep attaching each panel and stitching, or you can repeat the previous steps so you have two set of three panels stitched together.

I chose to stitch each panel on one at a time. I'm going to try and do this again  and see if there is a better way of doing it.

Either way, when you do the last seam - either the connecting the two sets of three panels, or, attaching the last panel and closing the ball - when sure you leave a half inch - inch gap to turn the ball out and stuff. 

After the turning out process the material was super wrinkled, so I did another iron to smooth it out. Fiddly but I think worth it. 

Stuff your wee bally. And pop a couple of jingle bells in the middle. 

Make sure you fill the ball with enough fluff. I wish I had put a bit more in before stitching it up, but I'm happy with it. 

Stitch up the wee stuffing hole.. And enjoy! 

This was only my first attempt, and while I used a template for the panel shapes, I did the actual ball without instructions. So, I think it went quite well considering. I saw these in a gift store in Leederville last week for $40 each. While it was a little fiddly at times, it wasn't $40 of fiddly. So yeah, definitely worth a try! Give it a go and see what you think! I would love to hear how you go! 

These would make a neat gift as part of a bridal shower hamper, or made personalised for bebes. I'm certainly going to improve my process and make them for some bebes I know! 

My next attempt will be a smoother attaching job, attaching some taggies, and maybe trying some different sizes!