Back

9/12/25

"Jesse, we need to chook!"

Photograph of 4 colorful beanbag chickens.

Recently, I have have become rather apathetic towards social media and the act of the endless scroll. I feel like I've been caught in its trap, and it's proving rather difficult to escape. Yet, it's become so normalized in our society, that it's hard to just call it what it really is: addiction. Right now I'm stuck in the bear trap of the video hosting site we all know and love: YouTube. It's sooo easy to scroll endless recommended videos and click on bright, colorful shorts; it's constant dopamine hits that your animal brain just CANNOT have enough of!

That's why I decided to turn on my sewing machine and finally get more practice in doing some smaller crafts (for context, I'm okay hand sewing, but my machine sewing is uhhhhh not as great). Sewing for hours on end is not a social media addiction cure, but I would say it's a baby step in the right direction. Every time I felt like going on YouTube, I sat at the sewing machine instead.

My craft of choice was beanbag chickens. They're (fairly) easy to make, easy to customize, and super cute. All you need is some scrap cotton or minky, felt, and seed beads for the eyes. I decided to follow the video below to help me make it. Yes, I am aware of the irony of going on YouTube to watch a sewing tutorial when I am trying to break my YouTube addiction; sadly, some things are hard to figure out just from pictures.

Thumbnail of a YouTube video about making chicken beanbags.

(You can click on the thumbnail to take you to the video)

Photograph of a horribly misshapen beanbag chicken. He has seen the horrors.

My first chicken came out, um....a little misshapen. But! At least I chose some banger fabrics. Novelty lemon cotton fabric, hell yeah!!! Anyway, I made two more chickens after this. This time, I was more experienced and careful, so they came out pretty cute. I really liked using the ribbons as tail feathers! My partner suggested using some sort of material cut into strands for the tail, so this idea was based off of that.

Photograph of 2 colorful beanbag chickens, one yellow and one orange, purple, and yellow.

A couple of chooks walk into a bar...

My next two are my absolute faves. Instead of using two 4 inch squares for the body, I used 3 inch squares to make two teeny tiny chickens! I used some wonderful floral cottons for the body, as well as some matching minky I had laying around. With their big eyes and long, satin tails, these two have unexepectedly wormed their way into my heart!

Photograph of 2 colorful beanbag chickens with floral patterns, one pink and one teal.

The twins.

Sadly, this is where the chicken journey ends for now. After making 5 chickens, I decided I needed a new sewing challenge (also, I needed a break lol). Currently, I have been drafting out my own ideas for simple sewing projects that would be fun to do. Although, I think I can always do a couple chickens when I feel the urge to hop on YouTube. Social media addiction is intimidating and terrifying; I'm hoping I and the many others stuck in its trap can find a way to escape, and replace the urge to check and scroll with something productive and rewarding. Cheers.

-Mewy