Stash Busting My Scraps - Floor Puffs {a tutorial}

Welcome Spring Stashbusters and Tshirt Diaries Fans!  I am so excited to be a part of Robin's stashbusting challenge.  I have more than a stash, I have a hoard!  See it for yourself here...  Below are some close ups of my scrap hoard, they multiply when I'm not looking.  Be glad the pics aren't life size.

1.  Some folded, much of this is less than a yard.  2.  An overflowing container. 
3.  About a dozen baggies sorted by colors.  4.  A bag I don't think I've even looked at yet!

The other weekend my girls and I were cleaning up their basement playroom.  Their main source of seating down there are a few bean bag chairs that were mine in high school, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised to see they have holes and the beans are sneaking out.  My first thought was to just make new covers and drop the old ones inside.  After watching my younger two struggle to move these around, I decided something more size appropriate was in order.  I give you our combination of bean bag chair and floor cushion... The Floor Puff:

So, let's get started, shall we?  Here's what you'll need but keep in mind, rock what ya' got:

• Scraps of all sizes and colors
• Two yards of a fabric that you no longer love (or old sheet, table cloth, curtain, etc)
• Zippers (2 per puff)
• Styrofoam, packing peanuts, old bean bag chair, fiber fill, old pillows, etc.
• Basic sewing supplies

A few notes before we begin.  I used serged all my seams, if you don't have a serger, I recommend either double stitching every seam or a tight zig zag.  If you have children like mine who WILL jump on and abuse these, securing the seams will reduce seams splitting and a major mess (I know this from experience).

Make a pattern.  Overall I wanted my floor puffs to be 36 inches in diameter, I also knew I didn't want a bunch of uniform squares.  My kitchen floor is 18 inch tiles, so using some scrap paper and scissors, I cut pieces to get a starting point.

Start with scraps that are close enough to your pattern pieces, then cut other scraps until you have enough.  Here's the math: each side will need four 18 inch squares, so you will need 8 of every piece.  Side note: as I was digging through my scraps, I realized I had a ton that were about half the width of some of my pattern pieces.  Easy enough to fix, I cut my pattern piece in half and adjusted my pattern to the scraps I had. 

Set aside any long strips, we'll get to these later:

Start sewing your pieces together.  Here's a tip for speeding up the process, sew like pairs together one right after the next and cut them apart later.  Like this (don't mind my toes):

Continue to sew your pieces together until you have 8 blocks.  Now grab a few of those long strips and sew them along two sides of your blocks.  (I'll have another tutorial, next week with another stashbusting project for the rest of those long strips...)

Sew 4 of your blocs together to form a giant block.  Repeat.

Take a deep breath, we're making major progress here!  Using some freezer paper or newspaper, tape it together to make a 36 inch square.  Fold into four (1) and use a string or tape measure to mark of a quarter of a circle (2).  Cut out (3) while letting your three-year old play with your scrap pile, please excuse the sideways picture.  When you open it up (4) you have a 36 inch circle!

1.  2. 

3.  4. 

Face your giant blocks together and lay your circle over top.

Cut out your circle.  You will also need to cut two circles out of the 2 yard piece (I used a sheet that had a stain on it, two one yard pieces would also work).

I'm not going to give you pictures for the next step.  We are going to sew the circles together and include a zipper on each.   Every time I try to take pictures when adding a zipper, I put the zipper on backwards!  Follow the directions on the package!  We have essentially made two circular bags, see:

Now it's time for the messy part, filling our puffs!  First stuff your ugly bag inside your awesome patchwork bag

Since I have old bean bag chairs, I'm starting with that filling.  Here's what's inside mine, I remember adding packing peanuts and broken up Styrofoam many years ago...

I also added some left over batting (torn up and tossed in between handfuls of Styrofoam) and even the trimmings from my serger.  I'm rockin' what I got!

My assistant decided I'd filled it enough for the time being!

I think he likes it, what do you think?

Got a lot of scraps, make more!  Look, 12 yards of fabric I didn't realize I had. 

PS - Don't forget to stop back and see what I do with all those really long strips of scrap fabric....

Peace be with you,