Tag Ball Craft How-To

The first thing you need to do is to choose colours for your ball.  There will be six sections to the finished ball, so you can go with 2 colours (as I did) or 3 colours, or 6 or even just one. You will need only about 1/4 of a metre of fabric, and I recommend using a soft fabric like minky or fleece (I used minky). It’s a bit more forgiving when you’re stuffing the ball, and it’s also very soft to the touch for baby. Once you’ve gaterhed together some fabric, choose a selection of ribbons to use as tags. They can all be the same if you prefer, but I find it adds interest for baby if the ribbons vary in size, texture and colour.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• About 1/4 metre of soft fabric (e.g. fleece, minky, flannel)
• 24 pieces of ribbon (approximately 10cm each)
• Coordinating thread
• Rattle or jingle-ball (optional)
• Straight pins
• Stuffing
• Sewing machine

Now you’re ready to download, print and cut out the pattern. Tip: you can alter the size of the finished project by changing the size of the pattern. This can be easily done on a photocopier or even on your computer before you print.

Step One: Cut out the pattern piece and pin it to your chosen fabric.

Step Two: cut six tag ball pieces from your fabric.

Step Three: Prepare your ribbon pieces. I used four tags per seam, for a total of 24 pieces of ribbon.

Step Four:  Now you’re ready to begin assembling the ball. Using straight pins, fold four pieces of ribbon in half and pin to the right side of a piece of fabric, with the ends slightly overlapping the cut edge of the fabric (which means the fold will be facing inwards, towards the middle of the fabric piece).

Step Five: Pin a second piece of fabric to the first piece, keeping the right sides together, and the ribbons on the inside. It should look like this:

Tip: notice how you can’t see the ribbon? That’s because it’s on the inside – sandwiched between the two pieces with right sides together. After you’ve sewn them, when you turn it right side out, it’ll look like this – neat and tidy!

Note: use a 3/8″ seam allowance rather than the standard 5/8″ seam allowance. This makes the seams less bulky in the stuffed final product.

Step Six: Keep going like this, adding one new section at a time, always keeping the right sides of the fabric together, and the ribbons on the inside (with the cut edges slightly overlapping the edges of the fabric and the fold towards the middle).

Step Seven: after you’ve sewn your final section on, you’ll be left with one whole seam open. That’s good! We’ll need that for turning the project right side out. But first, you’ll need to add the last set of ribbons – otherwise that final seam won’t have any tags. To do this, you’ll just pin the ribbons to the last section (again, fold facing the middle, cut edges slightly overlapping the cut edge of the fabric).

Then you’ll baste them on (that means you sew them down just to hold them in place – we’ll finish the seam later).

Step Eight: With right sides together, sew about 5 cm from both the top and bottom edges on the last open seam, leaving sufficient room to turn the project and then stuff it. You’ll want to leave several centimetres for this opening. We’ll be closing it by hand later. Your proejct should now look like this:

Tip: See how I’ve left several centimetres of space for stuffing? You want to strike the right balance here – leave enough space so that you can comfortably turn the project right-side out, but not so much that you have a super-large seam to finish by hand later.

Step Nine: Turn your project right-side out and begin stuffing. I prefer to use a soft poly-fill stuffing (you can find it easily at Michaels) that is very resilient. Stuff the project to your personal preference, but be sure to use enough stuffing so that the ball will hold its shape. My rule of thumb is that you always end up using more stuffing than you think you’ll need.

Tip: If you’d like to include a small rattle or jingle-ball in your project, place it in the middle when you’re half-finished stuffing. I used a rattle – my eight year-old daughter actually made it by placing a number of beads inside a craft jar, and then taping it shut. Another great idea is to include a little cat toy that rustles or rattles or jingles.

Step Ten: now that your ball is stuffed, all you need to do is sew up the hole in the final seam. Use a needle and thread and do this by hand.

There! You’re done! You’ve made a super-cute and really fun tag ball for the baby in your life. All in ten easy steps!