Mamas Together: Amish Puzzle Ball

I love homemade toys. I love their simplicity and the many ways children come up with new ways to play with them.

Although this toy looks a little complicated to make, it is pretty simple.

First, make your template. It is essentially a football shape. Don't fret about how wide or narrow it is, as long as all the material is cut evenly, the ball will turn out just fine. I wanted to make my ball fuller, so I did make the sides a little wider. You can see in other people's tutorials that narrow footballs make larger openings in the ball for little ones to grasp.

Textured fabric works great for this project, as well as interesting prints.

I used one of my husband's old plaid shirts, and an old curtain for the project.

36 footballs will be needed for this project. When I make these balls I like 24 pieces to be in one fabric and 12 to be in a second fabric, but really you can choose your material as you wish. As I was looking online, I noticed a lot of people choose to do 12 footballs in 3 different fabrics, and a few do a multi-colored, no two footballs are alike approach.

Next it is time to sew. The magic number for this project is 3. First 3 football-shaped pieces are sewn together, then after they are clipped, turned right side out, and stuffed, three sections are connected together.

The first section I sew is the one that I leave an opening in to turn it right side out.

After these two pieces are sewn up one side, I fold open my pieces, and lay a third football on top. I then sew completely around the football shape, being careful to sew two layers together (not four).