Sarah Lizzies: recovering pouffes

There is definitely no doubt about it. This pouffe is quite simply......."feio....brutta.....lelijk.....brutto.....ruma".....UGG-ER-LY, in anybody's language!

I happened upon this ugly duckling a little a while ago at my favourite market. It's beauty was long gone, hidden under years of wear and tear. But.....it had great bones, it was a great size and had oodles of squashy comfort for one's tippy toes; so of course it came home with me.

But....if this Little Muffet was going to sit on this little tuffet, or indeed rest her tippy toes on it, then it was going to need a little upholstery job. A little tarting up was needed to hide it's flaws. Indeed, this little tuffet needed a little sprucing up with some lovely new fabric and just a little machine sketching, magic. It needed to be transformed from an ugly duckling to a, dare I say it, a lovely new swan.

I chose a lovely grey, linen look, upholstery fabric and snipped oodles of flowers from my fabric stash. Here are some of the flowers and patterns that have oodles of possibilities.

First things first. I draped the fabric over the pouffe with the right side of the fabric facing the right side of the pouffe. I chose a wide fabric so that I could do this without too much fussing around. Who wants to waste time fussing, when one's fingers are itching to commence the stitching magic! I pinned the four sides making sure it was a snug fit with a good size hem at the bottom.

I then trimmed the sides within a couple of centimetres of the seams.

Turning the fabric right side out, now was the time to have a little fun. I ironed on vliesofix to the back of flowers and the other pretties and carefully snipped the flowers, butterflies, birds and whatever else founded their way onto the fabric, placing them in a meandering fashion across the fabric. When happy with my arrangement, the magic of machine sketching began.

First things first. To draw with your machine, you need to drop the feed dogs on your machine. This enables you to move the fabric under the needle in any direction, as fast or as slow as you desire. You will need a free-motion embroidery foot, also called a darning foot. With my stitch length on the machine set on zero, I was ready for a little magic.

Drawing around the outside of each pretty with my machine, moving my fabric as one would do with a pencil is truly the best fun. Normally I would only 'draw' around each piece a couple of times but as this fabric was polyester, I found three or four times was better. As it wasn't 100% cotton each smidgeon of a flower frayed within an inch of it's life. This step took a lot longer than would normally be the case. I do wish I had selected cotton, but this fabric was on hand and I didn't have enough cotton fabric with suitable flowers; and of course these flowers were pretty, giving me the look I wanted. What's a couple of extra days sewing, pulling one's hair out by the roots, anyway. Remember.....it is always about the look. I know, I know, it is a shallow gal that I am....but you knew that already. =)

Flowers meandering their way prettily around the fabric with butterflies fluttering their wings to the sweet tune of the nearby bird song.

I patiently machine stitched around each piece, going with the flow; really. I wanted a flowing, organic look. I didn't want any of the sides or the top to look the same. I wanted a feeling of whimsical whimsy.

On two of the sides I thought I might machine sketch some sweet birdies in bird cages, hanging from the flowers.

Oh look, there's Maisie peeking through the flowers. She is patiently waiting outside my sewing room window for her morning walk. Not today, Maisie, there is more magic to be stitched.

After days and days of machine sketching, the finished fabric is now ready to cover that ugly duckling.

I affixed the cover to the pouffe, pulling it firmly for a snug fit, stapling the fabric to the underside of the pouffe, all the way round.

Voila, my new pouffe.......Miss Muffet's lovely new tuffet. So much prettier, than what was before.

Not an ugly duckling any more.

After all that machine sketching, surely it must be time for a spot of tea.

It must be time for this little Miss Muffet to rest her tippy toes on her gorgeous new tuffet and enjoy a little viewing of Miss Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy......oh and of course knit some more of her pretty, aran jumper. I am afraid this woolly has been rather neglected this week. Perhaps some of that stitching magic can be transferred to a little knitting.