In the back of one of our closets, there is a small door that leads to our “attic.” On the other side of that little door you’ll find Christmas decorations, bins full of clothes the kids have outgrown, and a million or so cardboard boxes that I’m hoarding saving. There’s a small gap at the bottom of the door, and during the winter, there’s usually a quilt or blanket shoved up against the door to keep the cold air out.

This winter I’ve been using a mattress cover that was sitting nearby that I’ve been meaning to fold and put away. Classy.

So after four years of blocking the cold air with whatever was handy, I finally dug into my fabric stash and made a proper draft stopper.

The black and white striped fabric is from IKEA. I made the fabric tube 6″ in diameter, and cut it several inches longer than the width of the door. At each end of the tube, I folded the edges of the fabric to the inside of the tube, then folded and pinched it together a lot like a milk carton. After I sewed the first end shut, I used a funnel to fill the tube, and then stitched up the other end.

If you search for “draft stopper” or “draft dodger” to get ideas for making your own, you’ll find that a lot of people fill them with rice, or maybe kitty litter. I didn’t feel good about using anything that might possibly attract rodents, so I filled the draft stopper with poly pellets. Poly pellets are tiny plastic beads that can be used to fill bean bags, make weighted stuffed animals, or… fill draft stoppers.

I bought a 32-oz. bag of poly pellets (I purchased mine at Joann) and still have a quarter to a third of the bag left. But the door to our attic is narrower than a standard door, so if you’re making a full-size draft stopper, a 32-oz. bag would probably be enough. (But no promises! I didn’t actually try it.)

I’m so glad to finally have a proper draft stopper to block the cold air. And it’s so much better than stuffing a blanket into place with my toes…

If you’ve ever seen English paper piecing and immediately concluded that it’s a good project for your grandma, perhaps this stuffed patchwork ball will change your mind.

It changed mine.

I had heard of English paper piecing occasionally over the years, but for the longest time I had no idea what it was, and didn’t think it sounded interesting enough to find out. When I finally realized what English paper piecing was, all of the projects I saw looked too old-fashioned for my taste, and I never considered trying it. (Just do a Google image search for “English paper piecing” and you’ll see what I mean.)

For those of you who don’t know, English paper piecing is a method of quilting in which you use a paper template to easily sew a precise geometric shape with fabric, most often a hexagon. The shapes are then stitched together to make a quilt, a table runner, or other decorative item.

Usually.

In August, I saw a tutorial for a patchwork ball on the While She Naps blog. It had never occurred to me that English paper piecing could be used to make a three-dimensional toy for a young child, but I immediately knew that I wanted to make one with modern colors.

Later that same day, I plunked down six bolts of flannel on the cutting counter at JoAnn Fabrics. “That’s a great color combination,” said the younger of the two women behind the counter, her tone of voice indicating that she could hardly believe I found those colors on their shelves. I bought just four inches of each color for a whopping total of $2.52, and could probably make half a dozen balls with that fabric.

My favorite time to work on a new project is ASAP, so I washed, dried, and pressed my fabric that night. The next day I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out a dozen little card stock pentagons and started sewing.

I followed this video tutorial for the basting, but instead of lightly gluing the template to the fabric, I first punched two holes in each template and stuck a pin through them to hold the template in place just until the fabric was cut and basted. The basting was quick and easy, and I could have created fabric shapes all day. Seriously, I LOVED basting all those little fabric pentagons.

English paper piecing typically uses hexagons, but by using pentagons instead, this project becomes three-dimensional when the sides are joined together. (And if you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh, it’s a stuffed dodecahedron!” you’re in good, nerdy company…)

Stitching the pentagons together is where I got bogged down, since there are 30 seams to sew, and I actually set the project aside for a couple months. Last Friday night I invited some friends over for a bring-your-own-craft night, and this was the perfect project to work on while we sat around chatting and eating pumpkin bars.

However, I want to be clear that flannel is NOT the ideal fabric for this project. I was pretty sure of that before I even bought it, but I went ahead and tried it, and now I know for sure. Flannel is soft and cozy, but it has a looser weave than regular cotton fabric, so the stitches that join the shapes together are more visible. However, my hand-stitching is far from perfect, so someone with more experience would probably have better results.  You can’t really see the stitches in the photo above, but once the ball is stuffed, they’re definitely visible in the finished product.

The paper templates stay in until you have stitched around all five sides of a shape. Then you can just stick the tip of your scissors or a pin in one of the little holes and pop it out, since none of the stitches go through the paper.

The sides of my pentagons are just 1.5″ long, so I probably should have left two sides open prior to stuffing instead of one to make it easier to turn right side out. The basting stitches stay in and are not visible from the right side of the project.

You could definitely just use your fingers to push the stuffing into place, but since my opening was so small, I was glad for the hemostats I bought a few months ago when I made the stuffed sheep.

I stuffed the ball until it seemed full and then I stuffed it some more, because I wanted it to bounce and not be too squishy and floppy.

Ta-da! There’s my first English paper piecing project. I wish my imperfect stitches weren’t quite so visible, but overall I love how the ball turned out. I made it with my toddler in mind, but I’ve seen all three of my kids kicking and throwing it inside the house this week…

I feel so lucky that we live just a mile or so down the road from a farm with sheep. And my 17-month-old little boy is pretty lucky that his mama takes the time to stop the van and visit the sheep with him several times a week. Ethan hangs on the fence and says “baa!” over and over, and if the sheep come close enough, we feed them dandelions.

When I stumbled across a free pattern for an adorable stuffed sheep, I knew immediately that I wanted to sew one for Ethan. The pattern is by Abby Glassenberg, who designs and sells patterns for stuffed animals and writes a blog called While She Naps. I binge-read her blog when I discovered it a few weeks ago, and I was so inspired by her transparency and authenticity in her posts about blogging and running a creative business. Abby’s cute Baa, Baa, Black Sheep pattern is available for free at Sew Mama Sew.

Abby made her sheep with faux fur, which looked a bit more wooly, but I just used regular fleece to make my soft and snuggly sheep. The sheep came together pretty quickly and easily, but the trickiest part of the process was embroidering the features on the sheep’s face, mostly because I didn’t know how to successfully trace the stitching lines onto the fleece, but also because I simply found it hard to embroider on fleece.

I bought a couple hemostats on Amazon for just $3.59 with free shipping, and they were an extremely helpful tool for turning the legs and tail right side out and later stuffing the finished sheep. Honestly, I’m not sure how I would have gotten those little legs turned without them. Ethan picked up the legs when they were still inside out, and thought they were socks. (dock! dock!) I’m sure I’ll use the hemostats for other future projects, so I’m very glad I bought them.

Several friends of mine are expecting babies this year and I’m thinking about sewing up a few more of these sheep as gifts for the new little ones. I rarely make more than one of anything I sew, but I might have to make an exception for this adorable little sheep.