Tales from a Pattern Addict

For a year or more now, I’ve tossed a travel pillow on the wooden stool I bought for my sewing center. It’s a simple wooden stool bought at Target simply because it didn’t have a back and was approximately the correct height. But, naturally, said travel pillow does not easily stay on said wooden stool. I’ve had this idea in my head for a while now but, as my fiance cleaned up from painting minatures, I decided I wanted to do one last project over the Long Weekend. (Actually, what spurred it was a request from my fiance for some foam to pack up his completed minatures, which drew my attention to foam I had bought for another project and hadn’t used). I handed him the scrap of high density foam I’d kept from making my SIL a vanity stool pad (the original purpose for the foam mentioned previously). Why I kept the 4″ piece of foam is beyond me–other than I save just about every scrap of material bigger than a postcard. Sigh.

Anyway. down came the 15″ square of 2″ high density foam. A quick trace of the stool onto the foam and a couple minutes with the electric knife (oh yes; hint here: if you need to cut foam, use an electric carving knife–you know the kind, the one that only comes out for Thanksgiving. I have one special-purposed just for foam, as to avoid cross-contamination. I purchased mine the day after Thanksgiving for about $5. It’s cheap but who needs quality for cutting foam?).

So, circle of foam in hand, I dug through some material scraps for a suitably-sized piece. I quickly disregarded the cottons–I just don’t think they would hold up for any length of time. I suppose that doesn’t really matter but…

I happened upon a piece of home dec material. It’s mate had been used for the back of a pillow (the front being a center-mitre square). Perfect! Into the living room I tote the stool, foam and material. I dig out my staple gun from my tool bag and suddenly wonder if my rinky-dink, el cheapo staple gun will penetrate the rather dense-seeming wood of the stool. Meh. How will you know if you don’t try, non?

And voila! About 2 minutes of stapling later (yes, the staples penetrated just fine; I hammered them lightly just to make sure they were set) and I had a padded stool! Whee!

The only thing I’d wished I’d done different: added a layer of poly-bat over the foam. Ah well. I’m sure that can be reconciled when I feel the need to change the stool cover.