Floor Pouf--Anmial Ball From Max and Meena

Welcome to the Spring Fling Blog Hop! 

  Sew Much Charm kicked off the Spring Fling with the  Spring Fling Giveaway!  A huge congratulations to the winners: Lorna P. of England & Patti V. of Texas!  Each prize package had a retail value of $191!

Let's keep the fun rolling this week with more sewing and more fun.  Sew Much Charm is now also hosting the Spring Fling Blog Hop and I'm going to introduce to you our Bloggers for the Blog Hop!

Be sure to check each day by 6AM (Central Standard Time)!  Each day there will be a blogger (or more) doing a giveaway!  So be sure to check each blog post & just comment on their blog post from this blog hop and you are entered to win! You will have until Friday at midnight (Central Standard Time) to comment away on each blog post for a chance to win! 

Monday - Sew Much Charm & Vlogger Sewing From Scratch
Tuesday -  TPtheModestDoll22 & That's Sew Venice
Wednesday -  SewGr8ful & Sequoia Lynn Sews
Thursday -  Let's Go Hobby! & The Sarcastic Sewist
Friday -  The Bear & the Pea Atelier & Wildflowers & Whimsey    

YaY it's Tuesday, that means it's my day, welcome everyone, I hope you enjoyed yesterdays posts.  My item is not super springy per say, but it was a fun project to work with my daughter on while we're all home.  Let me now present the Stuffed Animal Ball, by Max & Meena.   Make sure to comment below for a chance to win your own free copy!!!

My daughter has been wanting one of these for a while now.  Why is it called the animal ball?   That's because you use it to store your stuffed animals.  The side zipper makes it easy to get them in and out and keeps them nice and tidy while providing a comfortable place to sit.

I bought the pattern Animal Ball, floor pouf from Max & Meena, and have been waiting to have enough time.  Well, guess what???? I have the time.  I didn't get a chance to go buy any fabric specifically for this, and she does recommend a heavier weight then I had on hand.  So because of this, I made a few additions to my project to help reinforce it.


I hope it'll hold up to the 'love' I know this is going to be getting.  And Gizmo heard 'animal ball' and is trying to convince her it's his!  She was smart and put it in her room. 




This is a very simple pattern to put together.  Just make sure to prep your fabric first and get everything cut out.  We chose this super soft flannel and a pink zipper.

Like I said this pattern goes together easily.  If you are a bit hesitant about the curves you can easily put a few notches on the pattern yourself, and transfer to each piece to make it faster to line up, or just a mark at the fold, so you know where the center is.




When attaching the zipper I found the center of all three pieces, and then made sure it all lined up.












 Then just sew the sides up, and follow the instructions.  I chose to use a 1/2" seam allowance instead of the 1/4", because I know how badly this fabric frays and I wanted to give it a bit more stability in my seams.  I also serged the seams as well, to combat the fraying.

I pulled the fabric taut and topstitched down each side of the zipper so we shouldn't have to worry about any fabric getting caught in the zipper later.  Kids can be pretty rough on zippers.



Another tip I have is if you're using directional fabric put a clip a the top of each piece after you cut it, so that when you're attaching the sides you don't forget and sew one upside down (don't ask).

To further reinforce these seams that will have a lot of force on them I decided to top stitch each seam down, make sure to do this before you attach your final sections together to make it easier.  As I said it's totally optional, but I'd rather reinforce it now then have to go in and make repairs later.  I ended up doing two rows of top stitching on each seam, and around the top and bottom center sections. 





It was nice to share my sewing with my daughter and had her sew up a few of the seams as well, she's still terrified of the serger though. She enjoyed the ironing and thought it was satisfying to see it smooth out.  Home Ec at it's finest.

Now about the size.  This is pretty big!!! hahahaa  I am so glad used the small size.  I can't even imagine how big the other sizes are, definitely would work for an adult.  I didn't see any actual finished measurements online, but noticed in the group how big most of them were.  So I have stuffed it and we've sat in it, and I'll give you the basics on the size small.    If you want it even smaller you can increase the seam allowance, or print the pattern off at say 90% or something. 



It's a perfect size for your average pug or 10 year old though :D

Leave a note in the comments with more ideas of what you could store in your Stuffed Animal Ball, or what you'd use it for, and you'll be entered to win your own copy!!!!!

 https://maxandmeena.com/products/stuffed-animal-ball-pdf-sewing-pattern,


Other things you could fill it with to use for storage ideas:

Winter clothing, snow pants, jackets, mitts
Summer beach towels
Extra linens
Holiday linens 
Fabric scraps
Baby clothes you just can't part with.

                             And the winner is Julie BEE!!! 

My first Paper Peiced Landscape Mini Quilt.

Wow March already and I haven't blogged in ages.  I have posted on my Instagram and FB accounts, but I prefer to spend my free time sewing, rather than typing I guess.


So I'm writing this post because this project has been a  LOOOOONG time in the making.  I can't even recall when I started this project.  I'll have to look back through my pictures and see what I have.  This has been a true labor of love because I had to learn many new techniques just to make it.  I had to learn EPP, regular paper piecing, applique, and throw in a bit of landscape quilting.







My inspiration was this picture.  I'm still really proud of this make.  This was my most advanced pattern to date.  I started sewing to make cute dresses for my daughter. I started with the basic pillowcase dress, and slowly they became more involved.  When I made this dress I was really blown away with how it all came together and that I'd actually made it.  I'd fallen in love with this fabric and had been waiting for just the right pattern to come along.  The Cecily Rose (currently in retirement) from Pollywoggles Patterns was a hit.  AND it's reversible!!!!  

It was also one of my first actual photoshoots, and I fell in love with this shot.  So I decided I wanted to immortalize it as a quilt.  But in order to have it come together as I was picturing it my head I had a lot of homework to do.  I took a class on English Paper Piecing, at The Sewing Cafe.  I had been hearing a lot about EPP as it's called in the sewing community, and it intrigued me.  I'm not usually much for hand sewing, I love my machine, but sometimes it's nice to have something I can do while riding in the car, or watching the kids play out front so I thought why not.  So from that class, I got my tree, that I appliqued on the quilt. 

Here is a shot of the backyard, the tree on the right is a Crab Apple and it's lovely in bloom, hence the colors I chose in my applique tree.







The section with my daughter was total trial and error I printed the picture out and drew on it and cut it and really just ended up free handing a lot of it. I'm happy with how it came out.  I got to this point, several years ago, and it's been hanging off my bulletin board ever since.  I wasn't sure how to finish it, I'd lost my vision so to speak. 

Fast forward several years and I was talking to my husband's Aunt on Family Day and she talked about this amazing quilt she's wanting to make.  And some of the squares she mentioned would be really cool for landscape quilt techniques, so I mentioned that to her.  And when I did it reminded me of my poor Lil quilt hanging on a pin.  Then a few weeks later Heidi of Pollywoggles was making a color-blocked hoodie, that reminded me of a landscape quilt as well.  So I pulled the dang thing off the pin and decided I'd just finish the thing once and for all so I can actually enjoy looking at it. 


 Now my skills have changed since I started this.  I feel the fabrics are a bit busy now (but I was using what I had on hand).  I would have done things a bit differently if I was starting now.  But I'm still in love with this picture, and this dress (which sadly doesn't fit anymore, but it still one of my absolute favorites)

I couldn't decide if I wanted to hand quilt the entire thing or not, but I decided no, it wouldn't get finished and end up sitting and waiting for a few more years ahahah.  So I machined quilted it but did hand-stitched the binding, and hand appliqued the tree on.