Mega Huge Bean Bag

I have had three bean bags stuffed in a corner under blankets for years. They're old, relics from my pre-teen years, and the covers are about to give out. I was sitting on the floor of my living room thinking, I should make a huge bean bag.

So I did.

Here's the sitch: I'm always cold. It's winter in Wisconsin, so do the math. Super cold. Although, in fairness, temperatures have been above freezing the last few days, so it's almost like summer. Anyhoo, the heat in my house is cranked up (I'm not even going to tell you how high because it's embarrassing), yet I'm still cold. So when I'm unwinding after work, eating dinner, watching TV, I turn on the fireplace to really get toasty. I say turn on the fireplace because it's one of those gas enclosed things that you flip a switch, and it's on. No wood. Nice. 

I find myself trying to get closer and closer to the heat, to the point where I'm almost inside the fireplace. However, sitting on the floor is not my idea of comfy, so I thought I'd pull out those bean bags, and then it hit me. Mega Huge Bean Bag. Awesome.

I picked up 4 yards of upholstery fabric on sale on Wednesday. I thought I'd hold this project until the weekend, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to wait. Plus, I knew that this would really only be 5 straight seams, so that would be really quick.

Here's my design:

I took the full 4 yard piece and folded it in half (so that it was 2 yards long). I had a long upholstery zipper roll, so I cut a zipper to size along the width of the fabric (I'm guessing it was 57"). 

Placed the zipper face down on the right side of one of the raw end edges and stitched it down. On the other raw edge, did the same: zipper face down on the right side of the other raw edge. Now I had a gigantic loop.

Then, I serged the side seams shut. Before doing so, made sure the zipper was open.

Lastly, I took the folded side (opposite the zipper) and created a seam across the fold...about 44" long. Sewed that seam.

The idea here was that I wanted it to twist, creating a headrest of sorts. It worked in my head, not so much in actual application...but whatever. In my head I was going for something like this:

Then, turned it right side out and ripped open those old bean bags and poured the filling into the new one. However, the filling from the three bean bags I had was not enough to fill it, so I used some Airtex shredded foam (also on sale).  However, when it's left to its own devices, it just lays like a big rectangular bean bag. Kind of looks like a giant dog bed. BUT, once you get in it and maneuver it around, it totally works. I'm going to add some more shredded foam (I used six 12-ounce bags, but it totally needs more) to give it some more shape. Mission accomplished!