When I originally made this footstool in about 2019, I used a discarded kid's stuffy as the stuffing which quite quickly flattened. So I added a bunch of fabric scraps, but it was still less than successful.
The stuffing tended to slip between the cover and the wooden base, and land on the underside:
I put up with it, regularly pushing the padding back because I didn't have a good idea how to fix the problem. However, I came up with an idea a week or so ago, and ran it past a friend, who made some other suggestions, and between the two of us, here's what I managed to do.
First, A'tuin's feet and head were cheap at a garage sale and I believe were some sort of a decorative platter or plant stand. As soon as I started playing around with building a foot stool, I realized why it had broken -
bad engineering! Pressure in the center, causes the legs to splay causing them to break the material holding them. My engineer son, helped me figure out the fix, which is what that block of wood on the bottom is. It takes the weight, and the feet now just add stability.
Second, I have learned from experience that ideally things should be able to come apart for maintenance. The bolts you see go into nutserts - probably the most expensive part of the project! However, that meant that I just needed a 7/16th combination wrench and I was ready to commence surgery.
Third: The original material holding the stuffing, was held on with staples and tacks. They're a nuisance to get out, but a small skinny screw driver and some fine pliers did the job.
Forth: My consultant and I came up with the idea of making an oval pillow to give the center reliable support.
Yes, it was tricky, trying to figure out where and how many darts I needed to shape it the way I wanted it. I decided to make the bottom of the oval pillow flat, and sew the top down to it leaving the hem on the outside as a flange for attaching it.
The pillow got stuffed with strips of cotton flannel from an old bedsheet. That wasn't the original plan, but I decided the first two options were going to be much harder to manage. The strips seem to be working great.
I hand stitched the opening, then used a staple gun to fasten the pillow to the center of the plywood. (Very old, upcycled plywood, so off-gassing isn't an issue. It was old in 2019!
I had also made a bunch of "tubes" as my original plan had been to wind the tubes all around the base and up in a spiral. That would have taken a huge amount of time, which was avoided by the central pillow. The bottom layer was stuffed *very* firmly, and the upper layer not so firm so it would be comfy for my feet.
The tubes are sewn together, and tacked to the pillow in a few spots. Time will tell if I need to fasten them more fully.
And the big reveal - A'tuin all put back together and now he's back under my computer desk for testing.
I *really* like him. He's a wonderful combination of upcycling, art, and practical furniture.
Credits: My Engineer is the one who decided he would be Discworld's giant turtle who swims through the universe, supporting the elephants who hold up the disc.
Pearl Sutton was my sewing/upgrading consultant and her ideas along with mine, made this project a success!
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