Velvet Respite - A Rejuvenated Pouffe

Velvet Respite. Not a terrible name for a 1980s all-girl rock group, but another offering from Clever Doris.

This project began with the cries - "why the blazes are you changing that, there's nowt wrong with it?" and "son, if you sit still long enough you'll get covered in fabric too".

Mr Doris had a point. I did actually make this particular item only 1 year ago. However not being the obedient wife, I thought "knickers to you...I know best"
Thing is, the top of the pouffe had gone a bit bobbly. And I don't like a bobbly pouffe so I set about making the change...
Now the original idea came from the Liberty Book of Home Sewing. I highly recommend it for beginners and advanced folk alike, as its full of really lovely non-twee and quirky things of crafty beauty. The concept of the book is based upon sewing projects using Liberty fabrics. However in this instance I followed it for the instructions only.

 

Before: plain with a bobbly top - most displeasing.

 

 

Above: cover removed, revealing the inner bag filled with polystyrene beans. Below: outer cover deconstructed into 3 main pieces. My intention was to replace the light grey top and bottom pieces only and reuse the dark velvet section (despite the fact I cack-handledly tore this piece during deconstruction process).

 

 

 

New fabric selected for the top and bottom sections. It's a beautiful piece of Indian hand stitched wool cloth which cost, embarrassingly, probably less than £1 at a charity shop - bit of an insult to the poor soul that must've spent weeks handworking this. I had to have it though as I just knew I'd give it a new sense of purpose.

 

 

I needed to do a bit of cutting & patching in order to make the fabric wide enough for the new top and bottom pieces.

 

 

 

The top and bottom sections were cut out using the old bobbly pieces as a pattern.

 

 

Now to rectify the cack-handed tear in the dark velvet section. A spot of zig-zag should hold it together temporarily while I think of a more permanent solution...

 

Aha! - time for a spot of lateral thinking. The permanent solution to Clever Doris's cack-handedness (in the form of a box marked 'ribbon').

Two lengths of 2" wide ribbon (cut to the height of the velvet side) was laid on top of the side seams and machine stitched into place. The width of the ribbon effectively covered the rip.

 

 

Left: the new top section was pinned and then machine stitched to the top of the velvet side section (right sides facing). Right: the zip was inserted between the 2 new semicircular sections which form the base. Once the zipped base section was completed it was attached to the opposite end of the velvet side section.

 

 

 

Above: the seam allowance was clipped perpendicular to the curved stitching line. Below: the whole bag turned to the right side. The circular seams were then pressed on the right side towards the top to reduce bulk.

 

 

 

Finally, after a wrestle, a struggle and rather a lot of swearing I managed to get the cover back onto its beany inner bag. Stuffing a bean bag into a close fitting cover is not for the faint hearted, but do persevere as it will go in eventually (little tip: double stitch all seams to avoid the inevitable heart stopping 'riiiiippppp').

 

Its not unlike pushing blancmange up a hill.