I made a Really Big Button

Fair readers, good day!

I came across this Ginormous Button Pillow on Instructables a couple weeks before my lovely sister's birthday. That gave me just the time to put one together for her. How convenient!

For instructions, see the original pattern here

 

Having recently reorganised my fabrics, it was easy to find something that would make a nice cushion.

I picked this flowery fabric in greens and blues with only a little bit of input from a housemate. I bought this a few years ago in Leeds market, because I can't walk past a market stall selling cheap fabrics and I liked the print. It's a slightly stiff fabric which works well for a cushion, and which I've never yet found a use for - my projects favour slightly more flowy fabrics that hang well and are comfy to wear.

 

I decided to add to the original design with some stiching in wool to make it look as though the button was sewn on, and fortunately I had some in just the right shade of yellow.

The pattern is straighforward - two circles for the front and back of the cushion and a long strip of fabric between them forming the outer edge. My fabric wasn't quite long enough so I had to cut two strips and sew the ends together.

 

I used a round shape - in this case, a pizza board - to draw the circles as the pattern recommended. To get the length of the strip right, you have to either measure round the edge of the circle or apply some primary school mathematics. 

Circumference of a circle anyone? Answer at the bottom of the page...

Next I decorated the front and back pieces to look like cushions. The only fabric marker I had was a little bottle of black paint which creates a raised line once it's dry. It wasn't quite what I was after, so I borrowed some fabric crayons instead. Again, the secret is to find some round objects and to draw around them.

 

Then I added in stitching in the yellow wool. Tricky - it's hard work pulling something so thick through tightly-woven fabric.

 

 

Sewing the cushion up was probably the trickiest bit. Because I put the design on both sides, I had to be very careful to align the two sides when I pinned it. It was good practice in sewing straight to curved edges as well.

The instructables pattern said to make a separate cushion filler to go inside the cushion. I'm not sure what the theory is behind this as I'm not well-versed in the art of cushion making, but I went ahead and did it anyway. I stuffed the inner cushion with uncarded wool which I have in plentiful supply; it's used as a biodegradable alternative to plastic insulation in my housemate's food deliveries.

     

Having stuffed the cushion and sewn it up, I followed the instructions to 'tuft' it. This means running a thread through the middle of the cushion and pulling it tight to create a dip in the cushion's surface. I like the structure it gives, and it's also a way to make the cushion a bit firmer if you haven't stuffed it tight enough (which I hadn't).

 

Here is the finished product in all its glory, and wrapped up for the birthday girl: 

The stitching didn't come out as well as I had hoped; it gets a bit lost in the dip made by the tufting. I also needed to make the lines a lot darker, as it doesn't really look like a button at all until it's been explained. It was fun to make though, and she liked it :)

 

Circumference of a circle:  2 x pi x radius