Man Sewing has been cancelled due to lack of content.
Whoa, whoa.
What’s this?
Oh, a Bad Call Ball.
Hey that would make a great tutorial.
Let’s get started.
All of us have a sports fan in our lives.
And every sports fan has their very favorite team.
And unfortunately on behalf of all those wonderful referees out there, they don’t always make
the best calls.
So we have to have a way to retaliate.
That’s right.
A bad call ball is the perfect soft squishable object for that sports fan to toss at the
television when the refs get the call wrong.
I’m going to talk you through making these tutorials today.
It’s super, super fun.
And check this out, we’re using our standard orange peel wedge template.
You’ll need four of them for a football and six for a rounded ball.
And if you don’t have one of these templates, you can bounce below to the description where
we have free printables and links to all of these supplies over at MSQC.
On your printable today we have the template just as you see.
If you like there.
Use cardstock to print this out.
We also have this is your laces for your football.
If you’re not a sports fan at all these are only for footballs.
We’ll just leave it at that.
And then several different letters that you can cut out and put on with a little bit of
our liquid fabric fuse glue right here.
I’m glueing these and not stitching these on for us.
But I bet that’s more info than you already needed.
Let’s get right down to construction, right?
Easiest thing to do is pick two fabrics that look just like your favorite team’s colors,
right?
And I’m going to purposely use the template here because I’m just going to cut this
with a rotary cutter real quick.
Cutting two layers at once is no problem.
I’m just going to slide my template so that I’m maximizing my felt here.
And I’m coming around the corner this way.
And I’m going to finish this cut to keep myself safe.
I need to push just a little bit harder with my rotary cutter.
There we go.
And the same.
Just spin that if you’re not super ambidextrous or if you’re using one of those cool lazy
Susans.
Ok, so there that comes around this way.
And the last little trim off of the corner.
So like I said you’ll need four of your orange peel shapes for the football.
And you’re going to need six for a round ball.
Today we’re doing the football for you, ok?
Construction wise, I’m just going to take and join opposite colors one seam at a time.
If you were using anything that had a print this would be right sides together because
we will turn these right out so we can go ahead and stuff them.
And I’m starting out at the tippy top corner and I’m going to stitch all the way around
the end and then join the next two parts.
I’ll show you the end here in a second.
So all the way the first corner.
Now I’m just going to go ahead and grab and remember it’s right sides together.
So I’m going to fit this in here.
Back up at the corner.
And then joining on the last piece I’m going to first stitch it all the way around and
then we’ll leave the opening we need.
So back up to the top corner we go.
Make sure all my fabric is all nice and tidy in there.
And for the last seam I’m pulling all of the meat out of way and we’re going to stitch
from here to the corner.
From here to the corner leaving an opening for right side turning.
Ok, let me bring my needle up to get in the middle of that project.
If you want to backstitch this it’s a real good idea when you’re starting because we’re
going to put a little bit of wear and tear on that opening.
So backstitching.
And then one last trick because I’m going to stuff this right now I’m putting all
four corners together pinching it down.
And I’m going to do a really tight little stitch right across the top of there just
to make sure all of my points come together.
And you could backstitch right over that one if you wanted there.
Ok and we’re going to do the same to my opening right down here again.
So right around there.
Backstitch for security.
Pinch it.
Make sure you’ve got the tip secured.
Back.
If you’ve got a thread cutter, use that.
And at this moment, let’s take our scissors and slow down a little bit.
We have plenty of time still left on the scoreboard.
And I’m just going to go ahead and trim those off.
Like that and like this.
Ok we’ll move those somewhere nice for later.
And now we’re going to go ahead and get inside.
There it is.
I did such a nice job sewing it I didn’t see.
So for this trick I’ve got my fingers in the opening just like this.
And I’m going to start to take my thumb.
This is a small turn.
It’s nice and easy to do.
And use my thumbs to push the meat back out like this.
And now it’s time to start thinking of your letters.
And as I showed you on our printables we’ve got all kinds of different fonts to do.
And I literally take that printable, you’ll have to print multiples if you’re doing
multiple bad call balls.
Because you’re just going to cut right through the paper.
And then we’re going to make our letters or our laces and we’re going to glue them
on at this point.
And the reason we’re glueing them on at this point is I’m using a glue that’s
going to really hold nicely on the felt but I want to let it sit overnight to dry completely
before I really start stuffing and prying away at it.
So I’d have this like this.
And you can see using the fabric fuse here I’ve already started to glue on the word
BAD.
And, oop I wanted to show you how to cut these out first didn’t I?
I’ve got my laces ready to cut.
So you can see right off of our printable, there’s those laces.
And I just put a pin through there to hold.
I’m not going to cut through the pin I promise.
I’m using some of my favorite little scissors.
And then just through the paper we’re going to cut.
And for a lot of these I just do the outside edges first.
And then I’ll go back in and trim out those little parts for the laces.
This is what helps you throw the football if you’re not a sports fan.
Ok?
So from this point on I’m just going to come in here and snip, snip, snip, snip, snip,
snip.
And you may want to work all the way through this.
I’ve cut enough of these in the last few days that at this point on I’m just going
to get the mess out of the way.
Come down to where those snips were and cut.
It’s every other one.
Cut, and the last one.
Oop.
Cut just like that.
And when those are all done it looks just like I need to tidy up a little bit better
but that’s ok.
You’ll do the same to the other side to create the laces just like you see right there
on the back of your football, the four wedge piece.
Now we can talk about glueing these bad boys on or these bad call letters on.
As I said, I’ve already glued the those.
Here is the key, while you’re glueing them, let’s make sure our letters are legible,
right?
And here’s my trick.
I kind of get a little bit of moisture on my finger so that I can then usually stick
them and pick them up.
Now again felt to felt.
I want a good bead of glue on there.
And then what I’m doing with my other hand is my hand is come inside of the ball and
I’m actually allowing myself to put some pressure between the two hands there.
Hopefully that makes some good sense.
So picking it up to make sure I’m on the back of the letter.
Glueing it nice.
This glue dries nice and clear.
So if you have a little bit of extra showing out right now it won’t be a big deal at
all.
Oop, unless you stick the letters to your fingers of course.
And by the way, my children as most of you probably like to know, love to play soccer.
And we were at a game this last few days.
And I really wish I had one of these with me.
However, these are best used in the privacy of your own home.
Do not carry these with you to a sporting event or they may have to ask you to leave.
Plus you won’t even get your bad call ball back if you toss it onto the field, if you
know what I’m saying.
So you’re all glued on just like that, right?
Now let’s talk a little bit more about the stuffing process.
So I’ve got a bunch of my loose polyfil stuff here.
And it will take about a handful.
Wow that’s way too much.
Probably about like that, we’ll see.
I like to take my stuffing and kind of loosen it up and break it apart.
Ok, that keeps it from looking really lumpy inside later on.
Now let’s say we had all of our letters, they were glued yesterday, dry today.
Now let’s go ahead and pinch this, pull it out.
And then I’m just going to take some of this in little chunks and pieces and I’m
going to stuff it in using my thumb.
And pushing it towards the corners.
A little bit here, pushing it into the corner.
And then once you have it all full while I’m getting it the way I like, you could be thinking
about we’re going to handstitch this closed.
Now when working on this project, it’s a small opening and I found kind of a cool trick.
You probably all already know this but I think I found something clever.
I want to show you here in a second.
So the key to the stuffing is enough that it looks good.
Plenty that you have a good grip.
You can really toss it and it’s going to fly well.
However if you have decorative pieces around the television, you want to make sure it’s
a little soft because you don’t want anybody taking off your nice decorations off the mantle
or something like that as they’re hitting it.
I know, bad joke, sorry.
We’re moving on.
Now we need to finish this.
And we’re going to do it by hand.
And one of the things I’ve already prepped out over here on my daughter’s favorite
team.
I won’t say it here in case it’s not your favorite team.
Is I have learned that once I start my hand stitching I actually am not going to worry
about each stitch.
We’re going to just make a series of loops that go back and forth and we’re going to
be able to cinch this closed.
So you can see I’ve started but let me tell you what I’ve really done here.
Now, right now I’ve just come back out of the green so this is heading into the blue.
As it comes into the blue I’m reaching around and I’m pinching and I’m going into the
blue and back out of the blue.
And I’m leaving that nice and loose.
I’m coming into the green first, oop, let me get my fingers organized thank you.
Into the green, out of the green.
Ok, into the blue back out of the blue.
And it’s kind of little rocking of the needle.
Make sure your threads don’t get twisted as you’re going.
As you’re going here.
So I’m going to go ahead and do in, out.
And a polyester thread will give you the strength to be able to pull on this nice and taut if
you need.
I’m going to do this quickly to finish off so you can see here.
And then I’m going to bring this back out on the blue real quick.
And now as I have this, I can start to cinch it closed.
And it’s going to go ahead and tighten up for me.
And I’m kind of doing, did you see that, it’s kind of a wiggling motion.
And I’m making sure I’m not pulling on it too hard.
I don’t want to make it look like the rest of the stitches.
But once that’s done there we can come back in.
Now I’m going into the actual seam itself.
And I used a white thread so you can see what I’m doing.
Of course you’d want to use something that matches a little bit better.
First I’m going to make one loop to pull it in taut like that.
And then I’m coming back out.
This time I’m making a few twists with my finger, handing myself the needle.
Pulling it down.
And then I’ll pull that nice and taut to make it snug.
When it’s all done we just cut our stitches off like yay.
And we have a finished throwing device that will keep you and your sports fan a little
calmer in the seat of their easy chair in the privacy of your own home.
Boy am I glad I was able to come up with something today.
I was so afraid they were going to cancel the show.
Don’t worry next week we’ve got something fantastic coming here at Man Sewing.