Scrapbusting - Closet Case Patterns DIY Pouf

I've got a slightly different project to share today but one which was really fun to make - a pouf cushion. When the Closet Case Patterns free DIY pouf pattern came out I immediately liked it and stored it away in my mind for the future. What I love about the pattern is that it was created with scrapbusting in mind; the idea is that you make the cover out of scraps and then fill it with scraps too. Fabric scraps are forever a frustration for me, so I thought that this cushion would be perfect.

The only thing I would say is that the pattern requires quite a lot of fabric, so you might not be able to make it fully out of scraps. This is fairly easy to overcome with piecing, although most of my scraps were large enough so I didn't need to piece any pieces together. Exept, of course, for the English Paper Piecing panel! The EPP takes the scrapbusting one step further as the fabric needed for the hexies was next to nothing. I wasn't planning on English Paper Piecing a panel specifically for this project but as I was choosing which fabric I wanted to use I suddenly remembered this project from a few years ago. It was exactly right for the pouf and I was just able to squeeze two triangles out of what I'd pieced together. I mentioned in the post I wrote about it exactly which fabrics are in it and I love how it means that there are even more different fabrics from past projects in this make.

My main goal was to produce a pouf made only of fabrics I genuinly like. It's so tempting to use up scraps that aren't so nice but I kept reminding myself that it should be something that I enjoy having out not something that gets hidden away. I decided to use a blue colour scheme for a couple of reasons. First, I thougt blue would be a nice colour to actually have out in a room and I think blue probably matches our house the best (grey would have been good too but I didn't have a lot of grey scraps). Blue was also good because I tend to make things out of blue so I had lots of leftover woven scraps, especially lovely chambray and denim fabrics.

Some of the fabrics that I used include scraps from these pyjama shorts, my mum's chambray skirt, my wide-legged trousers, my rosa dress, this off the shoulder top and a few other fabrics that I had leftover. The EPP panel contains even more fabrics from old projects. 

For the finishing touches I added a fabric covered button and piping. I was given some metal buttons to be covered ages ago and never found the right project for them but this was just perfect. I used quite a big button and chose the dark blue chambray to cover it with. When it came to the piping I wasn't sure if I would be able to include it as I couldn't find piping cord anywhere and because of lockdown I couldn't go out and buy any. After looking at several versions of the pouf I decided that it needed piping and I didn't want to keep going without any. Enter the ultimate make do and mend situation: I used string as piping cord! Ideally the piping would have been a bit thicker for such a large cushion, but the string worked surprisingly well.

Unfortunately the base requires two fairly large pieces of fabric so I was pretty sure I would have to piece some denim scraps together to make it. However, we were given a roll upholstery weight grey fabric with a kind of velvet feel to it at some point and it turned out to be perfect. I'd really recommend using a heavy weight fabric for the bottom as it's pretty heavy. The zip too involves scrapbusting as again I couldn't go out and buy one - I used the zip from this old jacket. My mum was worried about the zip pull damaging the floor so I added a little fabric cover to it which should hopefully prevent this.

This was such a fun project and I love the result. It has also really helped me tidy away my scraps, it's honestly massive and fits so much inside. The pouf is also very heavy, I can hardly lift it! Despite having quite a few scraps I didn't actually have enough to fill it so I filled about half of it with larger leftover fabric and things like old shirts that I'm keeping to potentially upcycle.