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Baseball Bag and Wallet

by Laura Poulette, Katie Startzman
April 04, 2008

How to Make a Small Purse From a Baseball

I've always wanted to take apart a baseball and see what's inside. When faced with the Stitch and Pitch contest challenge, I realized this was my chance to explore, as well as create a clever little vessel to hold a few essentials like keys and lip balm. Hidden super magnets hold the ball together seamlessly, and you can use embroidery floss and felt to match your favorite team's colors.

Materials

Leather baseball, preferably used
Two skeins cotton embroidery floss, matching or not
One piece 8x10 wool felt
Two super magnets, 1/2" diameter
One leather shoelace
Glue I like Aleene's tacky glue.

Supplies

Small, sharp scissors
Beeswax for waxing thread
Good sized, strong needle
Thin Sharpie marker
Pencil

Instructions

First, carefully place a couple of pencil marks around the ball, on either side of the stitching, to help line up the pieces later. You can also mark where you would like the "hinge" to be; I make that just past the narrowest part of one piece. Now begin cutting the threads. Wedge the scissors between the pieces of leather and snip the threads a few at a time. Notice how the stitches go from the top of one piece under the other, then back over the top of the next piece. Work your way around the whole baseball.

Peel the leather off the inner core. You will end up with two pieces of leather with bits of threads still in the holes. Take out the threads.

Lay the leather, wrong side down, on the felt. Trace the outline and cut it out on the inside of the traced line.

Spread glue on wrong side of baseball pieces. Glue the felt onto the pieces. The felt may stick out a bit; don't worry about that right now. Press the pieces in a large book. Let dry.

Using sharp scissors, trim the excess felt from around the edges of the ball pieces. You want the felt to be just a smidge smaller than the leather, so it doesn’t stick out later.

Prepare your thread. I worked with a double thickness of embroidery floss. Wax the floss generously with beeswax, and then thread the needle and knot it. Hide the knot between layers of felt and the leather. Lining up the pencil marks, begin stitching.

Use the indentations of the ball to guide your stitches, and work your way around the ball. At a hinge mark, stop sewing the pieces together and just whip stitch the felt and leather together, still using the indentations to pull the floss in snugly.

Cut a small piece of felt about 3/4" by 1-1/4". Fold it in half and blanket stitch the sides. Slip in the magnet and stitch this to the bottom lip. Cut a 3/4" circle of felt and use that to cover a magnet stitched to the inside upper flap.

Cut a piece of felt about 1/2" by 1-1/2". Blanket stitch around the edge and fold. Stitch to the baseball at the hinge. Thread a piece of shoelace through, and knot the ends. That’s it!

Baseball Card Wallet

This super simple project gets its pizazz from the felt embellishment on the front, evoking a vintage package of baseball cards. Two interior pockets hold your essentials (maybe even a favorite card or two).

Materials

2 pieces 8x10" wool felt
Embroidery floss
1/4" Grommet
3x5" piece of thin clear plastic (I used a scrapbook page protector.)

Tools

Scissors
Rotary cutter
Ruler
Self-healing cutting mat
Grommet pliers
Needle
Beeswax
Pinking rotary cutter (optional)

Cut out a 5-1/4"x4" rectangle of felt for the base of the wallet, and two 4"x2-1/2" rectangles for the pockets.

Fold the base piece in half to find the middle. Trim a tiny x 1/2" in from the side. You can also use a paper hole punch to cut a hole; just make sure it punches an appropriately sized hole for your grommet. Attach a grommet here. Alternately, cut a small circle and stitch around it with a buttonhole stitch to stabilize it.

Embellish the "front" side of the base piece as you wish. I was inspired by vintage baseball packages, but also constrained by the material I was using. Many of the old packages featured baseball players themselves — as cool as this would look, it's kinda tough to recreate in felt. Most of the packages had the phrases "baseball picture cards" and "with 1 stick bubble gum" prominently displayed. Basically, you cut out pieces of felt and use a blanket stitch to attach them to the base. All of my wallets have a couple of layers of overlapping felt. (I often use the rectangle that is created below when cutting the pocket border as the first layer of embellishment.) After cutting out all the pieces of felt and coming up with a pleasing arrangement, remove all but the bottom piece, and use a waxed 3-ply piece of embroidery floss to blanket stitch it in place. If any of the second or third layers of felt are going to have words on them, stitch the words on before attaching the pieces to the base. Use a back stitch to "write" the words. Now apply the second layer of pieces. Finally, if you have a third layer, stitch it down. Finish any lettering that you are planning. Sequins and beads maybe?

For the license pocket, trim out the inside of one of the pocket pieces to make a 1/4" border. I like to use my rotary cutter with a pinking blade for this.

Cut out a 4" x 2 1/2" rectangle of the clear, flexible plastic.

Use a blanket stitch to sew one of the long edges of the pocket border and the plastic together. Place the border and plastic on top of the base, and continue stitching around the pocket border. Stitch up the 3 remaining sides of the border, plastic, and base. This is tricky to do without distorting the shape and size of the pocket border. When you are finished, there might be a bit of extra plastic sticking out between the layers of felt that needs trimming.

Fold the other pocket rectangle in half, short sides together, and using the pinking rotary cutter, cut a "scoop" from the middle of one of the long edges. This is to make it easier to see and get to the stuff in the pocket.

Using a blanket stitch, sew the second pocket to the base of the wallet. There should be a center area of just the base felt with the grommet at the top, and the pockets on either side.