Tuffet Happy Ending

 So, yes, the tuffet story ends happily ever after.

Spike sits on it whenever I'm not in the studio.

But when I am working in the studio, Meg usually is in there too, so she gets to sit on it.

And my feet go up on it when I'm hand sewing, just as planned.

Finishing the Tuffet

 Sewing together all eight sections went pretty easily, and just enough space was left in the middle to fit my finger.

 The whole thing stood up all by itself.

 The last thing we had to do before showing back up for the assembly class was to make the center button. I tried out several black and white fabrics.

 If this had been a batik motif, I might gone with this one, but I thought it didn't suit the other fabrics very well.

 This just looked like a creepy black hole.

 Finally! The right fabric was found. I fussy cut the flower center because I thought it looked a little like a sun.

 Just have stretched the outside of the tuffet over the pillow form, ready to sew on the button with a very clever system that I couldn't have come up with. That's why it pays to take the class. Also, decided to buy the kit with all the parts instead of hunting all over for them was very convenient.

 The center of my completed tuffet after sewing on the button.

 All done! The hardest part was deciding on which feet to use, Robin had so many great choices for us.

Jaye's tuffet! The larger width strips show off the larger motifs in her fabrics really well. Our teacher, Robin is in the background.

Tuffet Class Day 1

 The first day of tuffet class was devoted to making the eight pattern pieces and marking them with the sewing lines. I only managed to finih sewing one of the sections together in the class, but luckily that was our homework to finish before the next class session.

 The teacher of the class, Robin Koenig from West Coast Tuffets was so enthusiastic about making tuffets and teaching people how to do it themselves, which made her such a great teacher. She was so well-prepared and organized that it made all the technical stuff go very smoothly. Above are all the marked sections and the one foundation-pieced section I completed in class.

 So once I got home to sew together the rest of the sections, I had to plan carefully which fabric was going where, so that when all the sections were joined together there wouldn't be two orange fabrics next to each other, etc.

 I rearranged strip orders several times until I found the arrangement that I liked the  best, taking a photo so I'd remember the order of the strips once it was time to sew them onto the foundations.

 One by one, the sections were completed.

 I tried really hard not to do the colors in the same order every time.

 And then there were three.

 It really was a great variety of batiks in those jellyrolls.

 Half-way there.

 It's just fun to see them all appear one by one.

 The technique for doing the foundation sewing and trimming, etc. got easier with each one completed. But I still had some un-sewing to do a few times.

 The end is in sight, and now I'm wishing I'd gone with the wider strips as I'd have been done ages ago. Instead of eight strips per section, it's only four.

 So close!

Pshew, all eight of the sections done! Next up, assembly time...

Preparing for Tuffet Class

When the opportunity to take a tuffet making class came up, I jumped at the chance. I'd always loved the idea of tuffets and always wanted one of my own (and I love the word.) I think it all goes back to this illustration. When you're a little kid just learning to read, this particular nursery rhyme has a lot of words that don't make a lot of sense and need explanation from adults. I remember having a long discussion with my grandmother about tuffets, because the much older version of the Mother Goose rhymes she had at her house showed Miss Muffet sitting on a rock. Go here and see which one you recall from your childhood.

Anyway! Friend Jaye and I had seen a cool tuffet at a quilt shop in Arizona and then several on display at PIQF, so it was on our minds. So, when the LQS near her, Scruffy Quilts offered a two-day class we signed up.

There was an immediate decision to make to prep for the class, choosing which width of strip to use, 3" or 2. I chose the smaller one, which meant I got more variety in my tuffet but a lot more work.

 I bought a couple of jellyrolls of rainbow batik strips to have a head-start. It was fun to play around with the colors and see what was going to maybe look good in a tuffet. I discovered there weren't enough greens, so I cut some from my stash to add in to the mix.

I considered doing it all in red or another color, but decided rainbow would work better and look best in my studio. Because my plan was that this was going to be for putting my feet up when I'm hand-stitching something.