Bean bags!

 My partner is into photography - he does pretty much all the photographing of stuff I make. We’ve recently both gotten into birdwatching, so he got one of those ridiculously long lenses that enables him to get amazing photos of birds in the distance. Obviously those things are heavy, and need to be kept still to get sharp photos. So he asked for a bean bag he could use when we are in some of the hides in various wetlands we’ve been visiting. 

A bit of googling led me to this, which looked the part, and included detailed instructions. As usual, I didn’t quite follow them to the letter, but hey, that’s me. 

The main fabric was recycled from one leg of an old pair of jeans of mine. I had to unpick one of the seams to get the 8.5 inches needed for one of the pieces - but that was easier than I expected! 

For the zip, I used this trick to make a nice welt pocket, rather than just cut and fold back. I used some leftover fabric from a set of pyjamas to make the facing for the “pocket”. The zip and the flap were added mostly as described in the instructions - next time I may do a covered zip (either single flap, or double welt). I also used the same leftover fabric to reinforce the stitching that joins the two sides of the bean bag and to make the flap that covers the slit between them (which also used up some of the leftover thick interfacing I had). 

Overall, the instructions are very detailed, and although there are a few things I changed because my sewing self wouldn’t let me “just wing it because it’s on the inside”, the result seems pretty good.