Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Baby Crinkle Grab Ball


A couple of months ago I made my little guy this grab ball. He was already becoming interested in balls but he was still having a hard time picking them up. I searched around the interwebs for a pattern and came upon this free pattern and directions to sew a fabric baby grab ball. After I printed out the pattern I decided that even the smaller size pieces were way too big so I scaled it down even more.


I don't know if all babies love playing with things that are big, but my little guy sure does. He loved that he could wiggle around a giant ball; at this point it was practically the size of his torso.


I'm not a huge fan of traditional baby prints. I wanted a toy that he would still play with even when he's much older. I didn't have enough colorful scraps that I wanted to use for a baby project so we made a quick trip to the fabric store for some fat quarters. He picked up the batik fabric; I know he liked it because he drooled all over it before the poor store employee had to scan it at the checkout.


This project was quick and easy; my favorite kind of project. I did make a few changes though. I decided to add a rattle to one of the sections so it would be a little more fun for him to shake around. I also added some crinkly material to a few of the sections. I have been using metallic tissue paper from the party supply store. You can see my materials here. I just cut pieces of the tissue using my same pattern piece and then stacked them together with the fabric before sewing the sections together. The sections with the tissue are super crinkly and they washed and dried just like normal in my machine. Because the tissue is sewed in place it didn't get bunched up in the wash. A few months later, my little guy still loves to crinkle his ball and shake it around like crazy. He's even starting to be interested in pushing it around the floor while he scootches around. If you need a quick toy, I hope you'll consider a grab ball for your little one too.

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