How to make a recycled wine crate footstool

I am always looking for fun ways to use my fabric stash and create pretty storage in my home. Today's recycled wine crate foot stool project does just that!

The cushion top is made with Foamology Twelve Piece Design Foam  and 12 of my favorite quilt fabric pieces along with some scrap wood, buttons and 4 wooden ball feet.

My wine crate wasn't the exact size of the Foamology Twelve square Foam  piece so I made the lid a bit bigger. I didn't know exactly how much extra puffy the foam would be with the fabric on it so I decided to cover it first before I made the frame lid.

I wanted to fussy cut some of the fabric to include images and text so I made a velum template.

Once my foam was covered I measured it and cut some strips of wood to make the frame and a piece for the lid base.

 I glued the frame together and made sure it was square with my quilt ruler and the lid base as a guide.

Then I put the cushion into the frame and glued it down to the lid base holding it secure with a c-clamp on each corner.

I glued dice on the underside of the lid in each corner so that the lid would not slide around.

To embellish the cushion frame I cut the shanks off of a variety of buttons USING EYE PROTECTION!!!!!! as the shanks can go flying even if you are holding the button with the shank side down.

 I made 4 rows of buttons to make sure I had a nice variety for each side. All that was left to do was glue the buttons around the frame border and the ball feet on the bottom of the wine crate.

 If you like making things with fabric the book

1000 Quilt Inspirations: Colorful and Creative Designs for Traditional, Modern, and Art Quilts

is a great resource for tons of ideas:

I Heart Quilt

Today I want to share a "throw back Thursday" quilt I did about 24 years ago.

This was made waaaaaay before I had any professional quilting knowledge. I simply just cut squares of fabric up I had around and old clothes. Laid them out and sewed them back together. When I pulled this out it was like a trip down memory lane! The teddy bear and bunny are the ones I had when I was little. As I have been doing a big clean out I can now find a lot of my stuff very easily and bring it out for special occasions. This is inspiring me to finish another quilt top I have in the works.

How to make a digital camo quilt block inspired by the book Dare to be Square Quilting

Dare to be Square Quilting is so awesome! I love everything in it. Right now I currently have one unfinished quilt that I must finish before I start a new one but I just had to make something after savoring every page of Dare to be Square Quilting. So I got my creative wheels spinning and what popped into my mind was my favorite print based on a square is digital camo. I have a small stash of scraps left over from the Fallen Soldier tote bags and the quilt I am currently using is a simple white one so I thought I would add a very special square onto it.
I cut a square of the digital camo uniform scrap and placed it in the center of one of the blocks.
All I did was satin stitch around the camo uniform square twice. It is so amazing that 3 square inches of a very special fabric can transform an ordinary quilt into one with so much meaning and feeling that I will cherish now.

If you like making quilts based on squares I bet you will love:
Dare to be Square Quilting: A Block-by-block Guide to Making Patchwork and Quilts
by
Boo Davis

“Boo Davis is a rock star! Dare to be Square Quilting is the perfect patchwork primer for beginners and a refreshing review for experienced quilters. A must-have book for any quilt or craft library.” --Denyse Schmidt (author of Denyse Schmidt Quilts)


. . . My approach to quilting is an approach for true beginners. I don’t like triangles, circles, hexagons, diamonds, rhombuses, or any shape that makes measuring a chore. (Can we stop right here and ponder the word rhombus? Man, that word is hilarious.) In this book, every project is designed using only squares and rectangles. Why just squares and rectangles? Because straight seams are easy to stitch!

Craft a modern quilt with independent quilt-maker Boo Davis, whose fun, slightly quirky designs take quilts into new graphic territory. Using only simple shapes like rectangles and squares you’ll see robots, skulls, alarm clocks, and owls come to life as fabulous, full-size quilts. With 10 charming quilt patterns, and 15 eye-popping patchwork projects perfect for afternoon or weekend crafting, Dare to be Square Quilting reinterprets quilt traditions such as basket weave, rail fence, and housetop designs in a bold new way. With advice on color and fabric selection, and an extensive how-to section on quilting, Davis teaches the fastest, simplest, and most reliable methods modern quilting has to offer.

Dare to make a quilt that’s funny, fabulous, and from the heart . . . Dare to be square!

BOO DAVIS is a designer, illustrator, and the founder of Quiltsrÿche quilt studio. Her quilts have appeared in The New York Times, Revolver, BUST, HOW, and British Vogue as well as on Boing Boing, UrbanOutfitters.com, and Thrillist. As a graphic artist she has received recognition from Print magazine, Society for Publication Designers, and Society of Professional Journalists, among others.

One final tid-bit, this is not the first time one of Boo's fab quilt designs inspired me, I did a skull quilt based on the one shown above. You can see the tutorial on how I made my skull quilt inspired by her's at Craftside.