Get puffing! Make a Suffolk puff

By Stephie, on Tuesday 7th September, 2010 at 00:40 am
Stripey bag with a Suffolk puff closure

New bag!

I’ve always loved Suffolk puffs (or yo-yos as some people call them), they’re so cute and I couldn’t resist making one to decorate a bag I made recently.  It’s really easy to do and you can use them to decorate anything from cushions and quilts to hats and lapels.  You can make them plain or with buttons or beads in the centre, but when I made my stripey bag I decided I wanted to make a puff with a contrasting centre.  The black linen I used matched the binding on the bag closure.

As I was rather pleased with my efforts (for once!) I thought I’d share how I made it so that you can have a go too :) – get puffing!

How to make a Suffolk puff (yo-yo) with a contrasting centre.

You will need two pieces of contrasting fabric, 1 piece of Bondaweb (often used for applique), pencil and a pair of compasses, needle and thread.

1.  Cut out a circle from your main fabric roughly twice the size of your finished puff, then fold it into quarters and iron it so that you can easily see the centre of the circle.  (I cut mine to 12cm.)

Circle of striped fabric ironed to show centre of circle

1. The ironed main circle

2.  Draw a circle onto the Bondaweb the size of your finished puff.  (Mine was 5.5cm.)  Iron the circle onto the wrong side of your contrast fabric according to the Bondaweb instructions.

Adding bondaweb to a piece of black linen

2. Bondaweb ironed onto the black linen

3. Trim off the excess fabric and remove the paper backing. You’ll now have a circle with a glue surface.

Circle of black linen with Bondaweb paper removed

3. You can clearly see the glue here.

4. Place the glue surface onto the centre of the wrong side of your main fabric circle and iron into place according to the Bondaweb instructions.

Black circle of linen placed in the centre of the striped circle ready for ironing

4. Black linen circle ironed onto the striped main circle

5. Turning a hem towards the small circle as you work, stitch it down with tiny running stitches. If you use large stitches it will pull the puff right together at the centre and you won’t see your contrast fabric.

Turning the hem on a suffolk puff

5. Making small running stitches to make a hem

6.  Draw up the thread to gather the puff and fasten off.

Drawing up the threads on a suffolk puff

6. Drawing up the thread

7.  Stitch the puff into place with small hem stitches.

Stitching the suffolk puff into place

7. Stitching the finished puff into place

8. Smile and enjoy your work!

Stripey bag with suffolk puff detail on closure

Perfectly puffed!

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Stripey bag

By Stephie, on Tuesday 7th September, 2010 at 00:34 am
Stripey fabric bag, knitted jumper and red beret

My handy new bag

I need a new bag I thought to myself.  Well, actually I probably didn’t.  But then again, I only have one (I’m so not your typical female am I?!)  and it’s fairly small so maybe I did.  I went shopping and discovered that the sort of bag I had in mind costs rather more than I had to spend.  Nothing new there.  But looking at them I thought, pah, I could make that myself in an hour or two.  And for less than half the price. I’ve been thinking that a lot lately.  I recently made myself two pairs of linen trousers for less than £50 (including all the zips and threads), which is roughly the price of one pair of trousers from somewhere like White Stuff. Result, I thought. So if I wanted a bag with the sort of money I had to spend I’d have to make one.  Not a problem.  And for around £10 and a couple of hours work I designed and made myself a lovely stripey number.  Oh yes, lovely it is!

If I were making it again, I would of course do some things differently.  I have a bad habit of ‘designing on the hoof’ – ie I pretty much make it up as I go along.  Well, I start off with a plan, a pattern, but then change my mind and alter it half way through.  It seems to be much the same way I do anything.  I should make a toile first.  Well I would if it was something important or expensive, but for something simple like this I’m happy to just go with the flow!

Stripey fabric bag

I made it in one of my beloved Kaffe Fassett fabrics

Stripey bag closure detail showing suffolk puff

and used a Suffolk puff to decorate the closure.

Detail of stripey bag

Big enough to hold something A4, but not too big to lose things forever. Perfect!

Very simple as it may be I was pleased with the Suffolk puff detail on the closure – little things please little minds!  I like the added texture and change in direction of the stripe.   I also like the way I made the centre of it match the binding and inside strap fabric (a black linen).  I must’ve been on a creative roll there!  I enjoyed working out how to make the puff like this and thought that maybe you’d like to have a go too, so I wrote a simple tutorial which is in the next post.  Let me know what you think!

I don’t know how, but it’s got to the wee small hours already, so I’ll say ta ra for now and will be back soon.

Love Stephie x

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