Creating The MEGA PUFF

Hello from Stag Studios!

BIG news today, we have adopted a new backyard friend who likes to kick it on the spa. Yep, we are in love.

Today, I’d like to share more details about my puff quilt that I shared on my June 23rd studio update. I was really inspired to do this project, everywhere I looked I was seeing puff quilts and they all look like pillows of heaven! I know what it’s like to sew a large quilt but adding more weight to an already tough task was intimidating!

One of the reasons I wanted to create this quilt was for our salvaged/repurposed outdoor sofa needed more padding! I thought a big puff quilt will be perfect. If you didn’t see my post about our dumpster couch you can check it out here:

There are great tutuorials out there for puff quilts but I rarely like to follow directions. Instead, I read patterns and watched tutorials online, and dove into making some of my own prototypes. My great-grandmother’s quilts were “puff” quilts but used triangles, so for my prototype, I experimented with using triangles. See a picture of my grandma’s quilt here.

I loved the look but knowing I was going for more cush on the outdoor sofa, I went with a square for more puff and I made my squares much larger than any pattern I’ve seen out there. To keep a nice shape, I lined the top layer of the quilt in warm and white batting before forming the full square and stuffing!

Evan helping me with the stuffing (below.) There’s an art to not stuffing too much so you can sew the puffs together but not under stuffing them either!

This was the most exciting part for me, seeing all the puffs stack up! As I made more and more, yes I did take the opportunity to throw them in the air with glee. Why not. :)

This quilt laid on the floor for about a week as I moved around the color. I know, most quilters know how their quilt will lay out from the start but that’s just not how I work. I like to play with my colors and see what I can come up with.

I ended up arranging the poofs in an ombre of sorts. The next step was to sew them all together. Holding the poofs together was nearly impossible. Really, there were several nights I told Evan I was going to give up on the puff quilt!

After a lot of frustration I had an idea, I dug into some of my painting supplies to find these heavy duty clips I use to hold and stretch canvas. The “little clip that could” and “big daddy clamp” worked wonderfully. Along with some extra hands (thanks Evan) every puff got secured.

Next time, I will likely sew them in triangles as my great-grandmother did. I will also consider including more hand sewing. For this job, the big puffs help the comfort of our seating but I don’t see it as an easy blanket to wrap and use. Lining the top layer of the puff was a good idea but it does add extra weight, something to consider for my next one.

The puff quilt is a favorite of our dog Maisey and saved our backs on a recent vacation. Our AirBnB had bad mattress, we slept soundly on the puff quilt we brought with us “just in case.”

Have a great rest of your week! I’m busy working on some sketches this week and doing a bit of knitting. Will share more soon.

xx

Kirbi