DIY Nursery: Ottoman Pouf

Poufs are all over the place these days! I love leather poufs and knitted poufs, but worry about the durability and ease of cleaning for both of those materials. I was excited when I saw this pouf pattern sewn and on display in a local shop  and ordered it off Amazon once I got around to planning our nursery. The glider we bought from Nebraska Furniture Mart didn’t have a matching ottoman, but I’m not sure I would’ve bought it even if it existed. I like that this glider can be used in a different room and the pouf can  be used in the playroom or basement later on!

I used the Amy Butler Gum Drop Pillow pattern * to sew this, in the larger size. I was a little intimidated – this was the first “big” project I had sewn with fabric I’d purchased specifically for one project. I looked around online to see if anyone else had tried to make an outer and an inner cover, thankfully stumbling on this blog post by Accio Fabric! about using invisible zippers for the outer cover.

So, I practiced on a plain muslin version first to make the “inner”. I fabric glued on some velcro so I could add more or less stuffing as time went on, which turned out to be a great idea since it didn’t fit inside the cover when it was fully stuffed. I serged all the pieces together with a 1/4″ wider seam allowance so it was a tiny bit smaller than the pattern called for, and would fit nicely into the cover.

My only tip is to be careful with directional prints and zippers – I sewed one panel of 3 pieces together with the owls upside down and had to redo it 🙁 I used two 20″ invisible zippers and they worked great! There are lots of tutorials out there for invisible zippers, I just looked at a few and tried it. It isn’t perfect, but I love it!

Instead of buying 10 (!!) bags of fiber fill like the pattern called for, I cut up a few pilly old blankets and shoved them all in there. It still was a little more pillow and less ottoman, so I rolled up a few old hand towels, rubber banded them, and shoved them in for extra weight. Perfect! And free!

I can’t wait to make more!

Fabrics I Used:

Premier Prints Hootie Owl – Turquoise

Premier Prints ZigZag Twill – Storm

*affiliate link