Put your feet up…

Pouffe, tuffet, footstool, hassock, ottoman… a thing to put your feet on, which also serves as extra seating.

Choose which one you prefer. I don’t like pouffe, stools have legs, hassocks are for kneeling on and ottomans are rectangular and have lids (or at least that’s my opinion). So I’m inclining towards tuffet*. It’s almost onomatopoeic, the thing makes a sort of soft ‘pfluff’ noise when you sit on it…

Easy, easy project.  It took me an hour, tops. Here’s how:

1. Decide how wide you want the top and how tall you want the tuffet to be. Remember your school math? The circumference of a circle is 2∏R (2 x 3.14 x radius). The radius is half the diameter. Once you have the circumference, divide it into 8 equal segments. (Click on the photo for detail).

2. Draw a line the length of the segment across the bottom of a piece of paper. Divide it in half. Perpendicular to this line, and at the halfway point, draw a line the length of the radius, up towards the top of the paper. From the top of this line draw two more lines, down to each end of the original line across the bottom. Copy this on another piece of paper. If you’re going for a huge one, you’ll probably need to join several sheets of paper.

3. Draw a rectangle where one side is the length of the segment and the other end is half the height of the finished tuffet. Draw another one and join them together along the length dimension (or use a larger piece of paper and draw just one the full height. I’m lazy, so…). Onto this side panel stick one triangle at one end and one at the other, joining segment length to segment length. Cut out.

4. Where the triangle joins the rectangle, there’ll be an angle. Smooth this out into a curve with your pencil, the same on all 4 corners, and trim off the excess. That’s the pattern done.

5. You’ll need to add whatever seam allowance you prefer. Cut 8 sections from your preferred fabric; a heavier weight upholstery or curtain fabric will stand up best to use. If you want the design to line up (as I did), be careful with pattern placement when pinning and cutting.

6. Sew two sets of 4 units together so you have two halves of a hollow globe, pressing as you go.

7. Place one half inside the other, right sides together on the inside. Stitch up one side fully, press, and then the other half leaving a 4″ gap to allow you to turn it inside out and then fill it. Press, including flattening the seam allowance around the gap.

8. Turn right side out. Using a wide-mouth funnel (or paper cone with the end cut off), fill with polystyrene beads/packing peanuts, or you can stuff with fibrefill, but it’ll need loads. Either way, be generous with the filling or your tuffet will be sad and saggy. This one took 80 litres/1 kilo/21 gallons/2.2 pounds of fill, which looks a lot in the bag, but is just enough.

9. Stitch the opening closed by hand, using whip or ladder stitch –the latter gives the most invisible result. I added a button to the centre top, just for pretty.

 

Sit smugly back with your feet up and admire.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuffet