Poof

be gone!  Ha.. do you all remember that saying from like 8th grade?  Ahh.. memories...

Anywho you guys are not going to believe what a little seamstress I have become!  I mean I said at the beginning of this little blog that things could get crazy here with me and my sewing machine but I have to tell you I didn't really believe it.. until now...

This girl (me) made a poof!!!  What the heck is a poof you ask?  Well my friend, a poof is a pillow type thing that you sit on.  I found this blog last week called Living with Punks and she had the most amazing tutorial for Floor Cushions.  Here is one of her pics.. dont get too excited--- mine doesn't look quite this perfect.

Amazing right?  I decided they were so stinkin' cute that I had to try one myself.. I mean I HAVE a sewing machine.. how hard could it be?  Well people let me tell you--- sewing is hard!  It actually hurts your head- no joke. If you decide to give it a go I would highly suggest following her tutorial-not the randomness I am about to spew out.

So let me walk you through my process... I went to the fabric store and decided that even though I don't have any kids yet I wanted to make a cute "kid-ish" floor pillow for my basement... since I am going to have a little play area down there for my niece and nephew and my friends kids.  SO... cute was the theme.  I looked for like 45 minutes and landed on what I thought at the time was the cutest owl themed fabric.  I NOW think it is the most hideous fabric that looks like odd skeleton owls... 

You all think so too?  So along with my skeletor fabric I also picked up some white cord (for my fabric cording), some pink and blue thread, contrasting pink fabric, some pins and a hot pink tomato pin thing-ama-bob-- didn't really need it but seriously you guys, it is really cute and made me feel super legit. 

So once I had all my materials organized I cut a LONG skinny strip of my hot pink fabric and wrapped it around my white cord.  Once I had it tight I sewed straight down.  Now I know this seems easy but to an untrained individual such as myself it caused a lot of frustration and bad words to flow out of my mouth. 

look at me sewing:)

 Once I got my cord covered I moved onto cutting out the main fabric pieces.  For this project this is what "Living With Punks" suggests: 

 2 of the 17" circles (top and bottom)

1 piece cut at 9"x51.5" (side) **you will have to piece this together if your fabric is 45"**

2 pieces cut at 3" x 12" (handle)

I searched my house high and low for ANYTHING in the shape of a circle... and you know what I discovered?  I live in a circle-less home!  I FINALLY found this lazy susan thing that was 20inches instead of 17 inches so I figured I would just make my poof a little larger. So I started to trace two identical circles and cut them out along with the other pieces mentioned above. 

Here they are... ready to go!

After I patted myself on the back for a job well done I moved onto securing the already made fabric cording to both of the circle pieces and the handle piece. 

TA-DA!  All pinned and ready to go!

The next part was a little tricky and unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of it... I know-- what kind of tutorial IS this??!?!  Basically all I did was sewed the cording onto each piece and this is what I ended with... 

Then once all my cording was secured I took the LONG piece of remaining fabric and pinned it around one of the circles like so:

Then I sewed this new piece onto the circle and once my piece was fully attached I flipped the fabric right-side-out and picked a location for my nifty handle.  I sewed a small square and "x" to each side of the handle to secure it in place.  The I flipped it back inside out and pinned the FINAL top piece onto my current piece... this is when I realized the END IS IN SIGHT!!!

Here I am pinning the top piece to the bottom piece.  I sewed the pieces together leaving a 4-5 inch hold so that I could stuff it with fluff!

Right side out!  Looking good!

Stuffing away!  I used three bags of this stuff. 

 TA-DA!!!! She's done (and lovely I might add:))

I hope you all are impressed as I am!  I think this thing is uber cute (well... it *would* be uber cute if it wasn't the land of the dead owls but you know what I mean!).  Now don't get me wrong... this little ball of fluff is covered in some MAJOR imperfections, but for my first go at a puff I am pretty pleased.  Anyone who would like to come over and take her for a spin (or sit) is more than welcome!

Carolyn