Last week I had a chance to share a fun tutorial over at CSI Project and decided that I should share it with you too!!
I have a one year old daughter, Macie - she's pretty cute. When Macie was first pulling up on furniture I quickly realized that our coffee table was becoming a lethal weapon in our living room. It was one of those big, round, double edged tables - you know the kind. Lethal. It had to go. My poor husband had to banish the coffee table to the basement leaving us with a void in the living room. Enter Pinterest --
I have a one year old daughter, Macie - she's pretty cute. When Macie was first pulling up on furniture I quickly realized that our coffee table was becoming a lethal weapon in our living room. It was one of those big, round, double edged tables - you know the kind. Lethal. It had to go. My poor husband had to banish the coffee table to the basement leaving us with a void in the living room. Enter Pinterest --
I saw all these pins for poufs and was determined to knit myself one. I mean, how hard could it be to knit a coffee table? Ha.
First things first. Since this is not going to be an heirloom knitting project, I decided not to use the finest merino wool. I grabbed eight skeins of Red Heart from good old Wal-Mart instead. Once I had yarn in hand, it was time for some needles. I used a size 19 circular because I found it was easier to hold all of the stitches and to close up this little project (more on that later). Got your yarn and needles?? Good. Here we go.
Using four skeins of yarn at a time (hold all of the yarn together) cast on 50 stitches. Now knit away.
Row 1: KnitRow 2: Knit
REPEAT forever!! Well not forever, but a good long time. You will swear that you have started a baby blanket. I used all of my first four skeins and started four new skeins.
Knit until your piece measures about 36"x60".
Remember my comment about the circular coming in handy later? It's later. Push all of your stitches to one side of the circular needle. Using the other side of the needle, pick up 50 stitches on your cast on side (your short side). Now fold your piece in half and this will set you up to do a 3-needle bind off. The bind off will join the two sides together, creating a cylinder. Sew in your ends once you've bound off.
See?? And hey, if you change your mind on the pouf you can always use it as a GIANT infinity scarf!
Still want to make the pouf? Okay, then its time to put the pouf together. To assemble the bottom of the pouf, sew the last stitch of every other row and pull them together tight. Now go around a second time and pick up every other stitch that was skipped on the first time around. Pull tight. Really tight until there is no longer a hole. I tied a knot to keep it tight, stuffed it inside so it was hidden and then weaved in the ends. Now get to stuffing.
This is where a smart person would find all of the stray pillows and comforters in the house and stuff them inside your new pouf sack and close up the top. I am not that smart person. I didn't have any comforters to spare so I used what I had --- memory foam.
We recently had to buy a new mattress so we don't have a need for our giant california king memory foam topper anymore so I cut that bad boy up and stuffed it in my pouf! Because of using small pieces, I lined my pouf with a sheet. If you are not insane like me with the memory foam, you probably don't need the sheet. Go get the comforters and call it a day.
Once your pouf is stuffed with your choice of stuffing, repeat the steps of closing that was used for the bottom to close the top.
You now have a pouf!!! As you can see, ours gets a lot of use. Thanks for letting me share it with you!
****UPDATE**** Since I wrote this post, I've noticed that my memory foam filling has gotten more and more mushy. I say this just in case you decided to follow my insanity on using the memory foam. I may re-stuff mine with some comforters if it continues to mush.
Also - I know I've had some questions on the 3-needle bind off so I thought I'd attach a little tutorial on it. I was going to record one for you, but well, I couldn't figure out how --- so I found one for you from Planet Purl.
