DIY Floor Poufs on a budget!
The Bohemian/Moroccan home decor style has been steadily gaining traction in the world of Pinterest and Instagram, and with that the re-invention of "vintage" decor and furniture, such as macrame and floor poufs. Now I'm not quite wanting to go full Bohemian with our house decor, BUT I do enjoy me a comfy floor pouf!
I first saw them at IKEA, but the $70 price tag was a little intimidating for our home decor budget. After a bit of shopping around, I came to learn $70 is about the cheapest you're going to get if you want to buy your own. Then, in October, I decided I was going to learn crochet, for my end-goal to be able to make my own floor pouf at a fraction of the cost. And I'd say I had massive success with this project! It was a really easy project that really only uses two crochet stitches: the basic chain, and the half-double crochet!
MATERIALS USED:
- 3 skeins of Bernat Blanket yarn (Super bulky), aprox. 220 yds each. I got mine for $6.50 on Black Friday, but it's easy to find it on sale for $7.
(One pouf takes approximately 550 yds, so I needed just over 2 skeins of yarn)
- 8mm crochet hook, (size L-11) - Pouf Filling. I used items we already had around the house to maximize my thriftiness! The book suggests a 10" x 25.5" pillow insert, but I'm sure you could make any kind of stuffing work.
PLEASE NOTE: While I did modify the pattern slightly (which I explain why later), this was NOT an original creation of mine, so I won't be sharing the pattern I used. Rather, I went to my local library and checked out this really neat beginner's crochet book called "Crochet to Calm: Stitch and De-Stress with 18 Simple Crochet Patterns." If you'd like to make this pouf, I highly recommend checking this out, as in addition to this pattern, it has some really cool clothing & home decor patterns for those just learning (like me!). There's a honeycomb-pattern blanket in there that I really want to try next!
Anywho, with buying the 6 skeins of yarn during the Black Friday sale, my total cost came right around to $40. Now, if you need to buy filling, that can add some $$$ to your project, but with getting married, my husband and I had some extra pillows, blankets and towels lying around that we no longer needed. so for me, $40 ended up being the total cost for this project!
ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER: I'm a beginner at this craft and still learning, so apologies if I use incorrect terminology when it comes to crochet!
THE PROJECT:
Being a beginner, my first pouf (the gray one) was an experience with not only learning the half-double crochet stitch (HDC), but also learning to increase and decrease the rounds, AND learning how to crochet with blanket yarn. It's a lot fluffier than regular yarn which is great in that the poufs really didn't have any gaping holes on them, BUT it's a LOT trickier to see where your next crochet stitch is supposed to go. I'd recommend practicing with it a bit if you haven't already before going full-on pouf mode.
My first pouf took about 3 evenings to crochet, and had a LOT of inconsistencies with the stitches. Also, about halfway through, I'd lost track of what row I was on, and I ended up going into "rebel mode" and just winging it. Which, for having no idea what I was doing, it still turned out pretty decent, THAT's how easy this project was.
(As always, my cats were very "helpful" when it came to unraveling the yarn and *TRYING* to keep it orderly and untangled... yeah... REAL helpful cats.)
When I got towards the end of the gray, I tried to get back to the pattern in the book, but found that the recommended number of stitches was making the top REALLY tight and making significant holes in the stitches. This actually happened on my 2nd pouf as well, where I followed the pattern/stitch count exactly, so my recommendation is if you try this and run into the same problem, rather than skipping stitches like it says, just keep doing half-double crochet in all the stitches until it either loosens up to go back to skipping stitches, or you are able to just close up the pouf.
FILLING UP THE POUFS
For my first pouf (the gray one aka "the experimental one") I ended up using a twin-size mattress pad, a blanket, and some gray towels. For the 2nd white pouf, I wanted it to be a little less lumpy than the gray one, so I rummaged around our house, and came upon an egg-crate mattress Jamie had from before we were married.
He was in the other end of the house, when he said he suddenly got that "it's quiet... TOO quiet..." feeling, and came into the back bedroom to find me, sitting on the floor, happily chopping away at the egg crate that he hadn't necessarily planning on getting rid of anytime soon. Sometimes my crafting is all-too-comparable to when your toddler is being suspiciously quiet.
But who even likes sleeping on egg crates nowadays???
But the egg crate pieces worked AWESOME, and I also ended up using the stuffing from a body pillow I no longer used to help give it that extra fluff.
So all in all, only a mattress pad, blanket, a few towels, an egg crate mattress and 1 pillow were harmed in the making of these poufs. But look at all the closet space I had cleared out with my craftiness!!!
Oh, and I was using a cheap hoop earring for my stitch counter, and at some point it fell off into the pouf stuffing, so R.I.P. earring.
Now, in the book it suggests using a pillow insert that is 10" deep and 25.5" in diameter, and I'd be curious how firm that would make the final pouf, so if you make this and use that for filling, please let me know how it turns out!
So there you have it, about 5 evenings' worth to make both of these (great excuse for Netflix binge sessions!), I made them for a total cost of approx. $40, I cleaned out our closet in the process, and the end result is two super comfy floor poufs!
Let me know if you've made your own pouf, and if you try making these, please let me know @EpicQuests4Crafts so I can see your awesome work!
Stay crafty!
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