The Wrong Beanbag: Part II

From inauspicious start to catastrophic ending. Whilst not as fiddly as the apron, the beanbag proved much more technical. Cutting out the side panels so that sea and sky joined was an exercise in precision, ending, sadly, in the death of a few whales and some loss of limb amongst the pirates.
Sewing them together was finicky and laborious whilst fitting the top circular panel into the not quite circular gap left for it could only be described as ARGGGGGGGGGGHHH.
After battling with pins for an hour I machined it up only to find, on turning it rightside, that the fabric had formed ugly, wadded bunches. Your casual observer might not notice but I knew and did the decent thing: threw it across the room.
Then I got the unpicker out. More by luck than judgement, the second attempt was better. I moved onto the zip, only to discover it was – a vital – 10cm too short. Still I forged on, hoping for the best. It was only when I’d finished the beanbag cover, and tried to insert the stuffing that hope started to die.
Push and heave as I might, the inner beanbag just wouldn’t go through the too-small zip hole. Huff and puff and strain, it was stuck fast. Until there came a horrible ripping sound and the stitching gave way and…
Congratulations, it’s a beanbag!
‘What do you think?’ I said, zipping it closed and presenting it to Sam. He seemed pleased when he saw what it was. Then he clocked the pirates, the seafaring giraffes, and his face fell.
‘It’s lovely,’ he said. ‘It would make a perfect upstairs beanbag…’
He hated it. I’d sort of suspected he might. After all, he’d never made a secret of being an adult. And was perfectly within his rights to think the Treasure Island theme wrong for a grown-up living room. Furthermore he had no idea of how difficult it had been to make the damn thing. Of the nail-biting frustration and tedium. The hours and hours I’d spent ridding the house of polystyrene balls. The years of my life that I’d never get back…
I relocated the offending article upstairs, where I used it for reading. Sam, from having a slightly ratty but otherwise perfectly acceptable beanbag, ended up with no present and nothing to sit on.
There’s a lesson in this somewhere.