EPP Pentagon balls

Last night at the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild meeting,  we shared demos for quick & easy gift ideas for the holidays. I was happy to share the English Paper Pieced Pentagon Balls that I've been making. There are tons of great tutorials online for these, including this one which was the one I learned from. Abby, at While She Naps, has links for materials that I used & a great photo tutorial. But since I promised the gals at guild a tutorial too, here's my version!


First up, you are going to need 1 inch Pentagon (that's right! Not HEXAGONS like usual, but five sided pentagon) papers. You can print these online and cut your own (which is what I did initially) but Lynn over at Stitched With Love has ordered them to carry in the shop! Who wants to spend her time cutting silly pieces of paper when she can be stitching away instead. Yay Lynn! We love you!

Prep 12 pentagons your favorite way (I'm a glue baster. to each her own!) This is an awesome project to use up little scraps! I had fun fussy cutting and color coordinating scraps for each of my balls. Lay your 12 pentagons out like this....

now you stitch the bottoms of the pentagons in the rings to the center pentagon like this...

And then stitch up the sides like this, creating 2 cup shapes (easiest if you remove the paper from the center pentagon first)....

Easy squeazy, right? The next part is a little fussy but you can do it! Flip one of your pentagon cups upside down on top of the other and stitch the two together around the edges. Take it one edge at a time and remove the papers as you go, as soon as they have been surrounded by stitches....

Stop when you still have two edges left unstitched....

remove the last few papers, then carefully turn your ball right side out.

Now comes the fun part! It's time to fill your ball. Filling them with polyester fiberfill makes a perfect baby toy. I purchased jingle bell inserts from American Felt and Craft on Etsy and tucked them deep inside the stuffing. Then I stuffed the ball as full as I possibly could and stitched the final edges together securely.

that's the jingle bell insert in white plastic on the left

Need more ideas? The three balls at the top of this post are filled with plain old rice (uncooked of course!). You see, my husband loves to juggle! I keep them in a pretty bowl in the hallway and frequently as he walks by, he picks them up and starts to juggle!

Maybe you'd like to fill some with potpourri to add a pleasant scent to your living space or dresser drawers? Or fill them with crushed walnut shells for fun pin cushions for your sewing buddies? Stitch a ribbon on and they become Christmas tree ornaments. The possibilities are endless.