Photographs: Annika Aava
Who does not have spare jeans piled up at home? Today a short story about how to empty half a cupboard. This time, true, I only used the trouser legs. But that is something too, if such a splendid "piece of furniture" comes of it.
Day 1, preparation.
From my pile of denim I sorted out 3 or 4 pairs of especially dark jeans and 10 to 12 pairs of lighter blue jeans in more or less the same tone. I washed and dried them.
The most entertaining part, though, was drawing regular pentagons and hexagons. The hexagon was not too bad. A ruler and a bit of logic, and it was done. But the pentagon was a worse story. There has not been a compass in our house for ages, not since the last schoolchild left. Nor have I seen a template anywhere around here in an age. How I measured and calculated: when the sides came out equal, the angles resembled one another about as much as a pig resembles a cuckoo. When it finally looked more or less right by eye, checking by folding showed that the thing was very far from symmetrical.
I even called percentage calculations to my aid, to compare the sides of a regular pentagon on the screen and find the height of the apex on my drawing. But what is not there is not there... By the way, the length of the side had to equal the length of the hexagon's side.
The solution came only the next morning.
You know that moment before falling asleep, when your subconscious throws the answers you need in front of you for a second... Well, my inner voice said that the missing link is a SAUCEPAN LID.
The new day began with a saucepan lid circle inside the pentagon. It was that simple. I fixed the centre of the circle, and then the sides and the angles.
Day 2, cutting the pieces and sewing them together.
I picked out the soundest trouser legs and, with the help of my templates, cut out pieces for 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. I discarded every worn place.
Since my stock was mostly schoolboys' jeans and therefore with relatively narrow legs, I ended up with an enormous pile in the corner of the room of halves or thirds or even quarters of the shapes I needed, from which to sew the "ball's" pieces together.
Day 3, sewing the shapes.
Sewing the pieces of denim into pentagons and hexagons. First with the overlocker, then I topstitched all the seams so they would be strong enough for both jumping and washing. By evening 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons were done. I overlocked all the pieces right round.
I started sewing the pieces together into a ball (a beanbag): again an inner seam and topstitching on top.
Day 4, sewing the beanbag together and finishing
I carried on sewing the shapes into a ball and topstitching. Into one side I sewed a zip close to a metre long, so that the inner bag with the granules can be taken out if needed and the denim outer put into the washing machine. The last piece of sewing was making the inner bag for the beanbag, likewise with a zip. Because beanbags have to be refilled from time to time. My own label on it and it was finished.
Day 5, filling the chair, the photo session, delivery to the client
Right then: the sewing being finished does not mean I can take up the next piece of work. The enormous football still had to be driven into town and filled with granules. Then taken to be photographed. Then stuffed into the car again and delivered to the client.
The photography took place at the grandchildren's again. We passed the ball to the children and then my daughter in law and I picked up our cameras and started firing.
Sadly the light this time was a little poor and the children especially full of energy. Of the hundred odd frames the two of us clicked, not a single picture of mine came out; my daughter in law was luckier. Sometimes the whole business of finishing a piece of work and photographing it with the children is so splendid that the light and setting the camera up properly are forgotten at the right moment. You try to snatch moments quickly while the children are in the swing of it, and only later on the computer do you see... oh dear.
But the ball came out splendidly. I must make myself one like it too.
Here is the net of a football that I used as a model (taken from the energiakeskus.ee site).
