Bean Bags

This was a project we made during half term holiday. My daughter wanted to help with some sewing, my son wanted to do throwing things so we combined the two and made these easy peasy bean bags.

You will need a rectangle of fabric about twice as high as it is wide - ours measured 10 cm x 20 cm. We chose split peas to fill the bags with but rice, barley or lentils would have worked as well.

Fold the fabric in half right sides together so you have a square. Sew down the edge opposite the fold using a quarter inch seam. You should have a tube.

Turn the tube inside out. Along one of the raw edges turn a quarter of an inch "hem" to the inside of the tube. Sew a line of topstitching along this edge so you now have a pocket.

Fill the bag with your chosen "beans", do not fill it too full or you won't be able to fit it under your presser foot!

Turn a hem to the wrong side on the remaining raw edge and topstitch shut. This seam should be 90 degrees to the other end seam as you can see in the photo - not matching the direction of the other end seam like making a pillow; this gives a chunkier bean bag which is easier for little people to catch.

The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes to put together. The pile you can see here took about half an hour. All you need to do now is invent some bean bag games to play!