While working on things for my daughter’s donut themed birthday party in March, I created a Donut Bean Bag Toss Game. I filled the bags with really old popcorn, and let Ada play with them ahead of the party. The reminded my husband, of some bean bag frogs his mom had made when he was a kid, and that sent us down a rabbit hole.
The original pattern is from McCall’s, and was printed in 1971. It came with patterns for frogs and turtles, in two sizes, and seems to have been both a toy, and an object to have people sign. (I can’t figure out why you would collect signatures on a frog, but there are pictures on the front of the pattern showing that as an option.)
I found a digital copy online, and we spent a fun day piecing it back together, and making some of the small frogs. We nearly finished 4 that day, though they never got button eyes, because Ada ran off with all of them. We used one 6-lb bag of poly beads, meaning each one came to 1.5 lbs.
Fast forward to my trying to figure out a fun Mother’s Day gift for my mom. The small frog pattern was sticking out from under my laptop stand, and I got curious about the larger patterns. I decided to try making the big frog, out of fabrics from my mom’s kitchen, to use as a doorstop or a cookbook holder, because she likes to bake. Hence Ms. Hazel von Heavybottom was born! Here she is cradling a full size cookbook.
She’s a chonker. Remembering that the smaller ones were each 1.5 lbs, I bought another 6-lb bag of poly-beads, only to discover it wasn’t enough! Overall she weighs about 7 lbs. She measures about 15" wide, and 21" long. The second bag of beads arrived last night, and I finished filling her, stitching her closed, and adding eyes this morning. Just in time to mail her to her new home in NH.
An extra picture on my cutting mat, to show the sheer scale of her heft!
