Quilt your favorite fabrics to create a statement piece by following the instructions for this quilted footstool tutorial.
I just finished my favorite non-quilt item I’ve made.
My daughter is two, and we play a lot in her room – and most of that playing is at floor level. Sitting in the nice comfortable adult size chair that is in her room is not acceptable, but my body just can’t handle sitting on the floor for hours a day.
That is where this quilted footstool comes in. We recently purchased new foam to go in the seat cushions of the couch. We kept the old foam for a little while to see if it would fit in a different couch that is even worse (but of course it didn’t fit – that would have been too convenient!). One day as I was sitting on the floor, I realized that this old foam could be the solution to my problem.
We (royal we = my husband) cut the foam in half and I stacked it, and I made the quilted cover for it. I have a tutorial on how I made it over at Fort Worth Fabric Studio if you would like to make your own.
I used some fabric from the Petal & Plume line by Bari J – seriously gorgeous! That peacock fabric is amazing in person.
Initially, I had planned to do more subdued quilting on the fabric. I was going to use purple Bottom Line – which is a really thin thread that you would barely have seen. The texture from the quilting would have been all that was visible.
Then, as I was looking through my thread I found this amazing pink variegated Fantastico thread and I knew it was meant to be for this fabric. The design on this fabric is strong enough that it stands up to (and I think is complimented) by a shiny visible thread. I used a peacock feather panto for the peacock fabric.
For the feather fabric, the lines are pretty thick and it the design is fairly dense so I knew that whatever quilting I did was probably not going to show very much. I continued to use the pink thread, but switched to a loose feather panto to mix it up a little bit.
You can’t really see the quilting on the top, but you can see the pattern against the backing. With two different quilting designs, using the same thread for both fabrics gives a little bit of continuity to the quilting.
I know most people leave their quilting on quilts, but I love bringing it into other parts of my house and life. This footstool/cushion now sits in my daughter’s room, and I love how much color it brings into her room.
She may end up claiming this from me, based on how many times she has sat and climbed on it already, but hopefully I will also get to enjoy using it. Worst case, I have one old couch cushion left, so I may have to make a second one for me.
If you want to bring some of your favorite fabrics into your everyday life, contact me and I can quilt fabric for you.
Linking up to some of the following: Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, Sew Cute Tuesday @ Blossom Heart Quilts, Tips and Tutorials Tuesdays @ Late Night Quilter, Let’s Bee Social Wednesday @ SewFreshQuilts, Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts, Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Quilt Addict, TGIFF, Show off Saturday at Sew Can She, and Threading your way @ Threading my Way
