Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Tree Stump Floor Cushion

I've been thinking about changing the kids' room from a mountain bike theme to a more woodsy/mountain theme that will work for both my son and daughter since they'll be sharing this room.  I somehow stumbled on this tutorial from Living with Punks on how to make floor cushions and then found a tree stump floor cushion on Etsy that was adorable!  But of course no longer available.  So what does any crafty mom do?  Make her own of course!  Here's what I did to modify Susan's fantastic tutorial into a tree stump floor cushion:

  • 1/2 yard of Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 Woodgrain
  • 1/2 yard of home dec weight in a light tan
  • dark brown permanent marker
  • green felt for the leaves, so just a bit will do
  • one bag of foam scraps from JoAnn's
  • some quilting batting, probably about 1/2 yard will do
I made mine slightly bigger than Susan did, I cut out my circles in an 18 inch diameter.  To figure out the length of the sides for my enlarged cushion I had to Google the formula to find the circumference of a circle using the diameter.  It's circumference x Pi, BTW.  So my 18 inch diameter circles had a circumference of 56.5 inches.  And since the woodgrain fabric was not home dec fabric, it was only 44" inches wide, I had to cut out two 28 1/4" long pieces and then sew them together along the short ends.


Then I used a disappearing fabric marker to draw some leaves on my felt and cut out three of them:

Next, I used the permanent maker to draw the rings of the wood on both of the circle pieces.  I didn't do such a neat job on the first one so that will be the bottom.  Second one was a bit neater, I took a picture of that one :)

Next came my least favorite part, pinning the circle to the side pieces.  It always seems all wonky at first when attaching a rectangular piece to a circular piece, but stick with it and it turns out fairly well.  I didn't pin the last 2 inches of the side pieces on either end so I could make any adjustments necessary which is a good thing I did because they were a smidge too long!

Before moving on to the bottom piece, I made the twig/stem handle.  To do that I took the handle piece of fabric, folded it right sides facing and sewed along the long edge and one short end with about a 5/8" seam.  

I turned it right side out, stuffed with batting and turned in the open end a bit.

Then I pinned the twig and the leaves to the side of the cushion and sewed it on with a box stitch on both ends of the handle.  I should mention that before I pinned on the leaves, I basted them together because the little boogers were too wiley on their own!

Then I pinned the bottom circle piece on and sewed away using a 1/2" inch seam leaving a gap open on one end.  

Then the surprisingly messy part: stuffing!  I strongly encourage enlisting small hands to help.  My little guy thought it was so much fun to pull the stuffing out of the bag and put into his floor cushion.  I also think this made him very proud and happy with this project.  And he was actually much better at it than I was, small handfuls are key!  Ooh, I forgot to mention (and to do myself) you should put a piece of batting down as the first layer and then stuff with foam.  Then once it's as full as you like, put another piece of batting on the top of the filling.


Once it's good and stuffed, use a ladder stitch to close up the opening, grab a book and enjoy!


Here's a better view of the stump cushion or "my pellow" as my little man calls it.





5 comments:

  1. Simply darling! I have admired that JOel Dewberry fabric for quite some time now and you used it perfectly! A tree stump stool! And the felt leaves on the handle are awesome. Thanks for linking :) I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice work Holly! I'm so impressed! I hate sewing round stuff, way to tackle it :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love it Holly! (Wish I'd known you were into sewing. I just recently gave away boxes and boxes full of sewing supplies.) I'll look forward to reading about your next creative project. Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is by far the cutest floor cushion I seen! What a fantastic idea and I have some "wood grain" fabric in my stash that I couldn't decide what to do with. You're little guy is precious too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have been looking all over for a pattern/idea as how to make juat this very thing. I bought a slice log pillow and was going to make the trunk out of solid brown and place the slice on top...I think I'll use your cute top and the slice can be used on top or on the floor. Thanks for sharing...My new grandson's "woodland theme" bedroom will be even cuter with "your" tree trunk!

    ReplyDelete