Not being able to access fabric stores has really pushed me to be creative. I have extra fabric the
sorry girls passed this down to me when they were making the headboard for me. It's a beautiful
pink velvet, and today I'm going to attempt to make the very popular instagram seashell cushion.
This is the perfect material for it it often comes in velvet. So we're going to try this.
This original design is I believe by Polish brand Moi Mili. Many replicas have been made and sold,
but theirs has a beautiful piping finish around the edges that can’t be beat.
So I have just enough fabric to make a 16x20 cushion,
so not a great big cushion. Setup is important here as symmetry is essential in getting this
shape right. I’ll link a photo of the pattern I made in my description. I tried the string on
a pencil technique to get a good arch, but it didn’t create the shape I wanted. So instead,
I took a circular jar lid and drew semi circles on half the sheet of paper. The lowest scallop should
be the widest part of your shell, so if you’re drafting your own pattern, gradually bring the
jar lid up and to the right. Too far up, and your shell will look like a pot leaf, and make
sure you have at least three scallops on one side so that it doesn’t look like mittens. Fold your
paper in half, and cut with a swoop, connecting the base to the scallops with a gentle curve.
Place the pattern on the wrong side of the fabric, and outline with a pencil. This is an essential
step for me since I’m working with irregular bits of fabric and my seam allowance won’t be exact.
Cut around the outline with 1/2 inch allowance and repeat on a second piece.
About three inches up from the base, draw a horizontal line
end to end. Mark an inch apart according to the number of scallops you have.
Then draw a curved line down to connect your base marking. You can free hand this,
focusing on a greater curve towards the midline before straightening out to the base.
Then match right sides together and sew around the perimeter,
leaving a small opening at the base for stuffing.
This is where the pencil outline comes in handy because I can pin where I drew so that my scallops
stay accurate. It felt good to sew again, since I haven’t done anything serious since moving.
Last night once I finished this, then I ran into a pickle. Sometimes my brain, a lot of the times
my brain can't comprehend something until I do it and I try to plan ahead as much as I can but then
I just get confused. I was just gonna go ahead and start stitching the scallops of the shell
but then realized that if I did that I can't turn it inside out. I verified this with Stef
because he has that brain that can piece apart things too, but he ran into a pickle too.
Yeah no you can't it's such a mind *. So I'm going to sew over the right side,
I'm going to stuff gently as much into the little the tops of the scallops as much as I can.
Snip tiny cuts in between your scallops to prevent the fabric from bunching weirdly from stuffing.
So since I drew the lines on the wrong side, I used pins at the base and along the curve
of the shell to make sure I stitch with equal spacing when I’m sewing over the right side.
Gently turn inside out. Try to take your polyfill to the end of the shell. I was worried that my
machine wouldn’t be able to take the thickness, but I could’ve pre-stuffed my cushion even more.
Sew from top to base with a tight stitch, making sure you backtrack.
A plus of velvet is that I could draw guidelines on the fabric with my nail.
That was super helpful in making sure I kept straight to my lines.
Once you have all your lines down, you’re done with the machine! The best stuffers I’ve used were
a pair of chopsticks. I used the pair as a way to carry the polypill to the end of the cushion,
and when I needed to push the fill around, I used a single chopstick. It’s faster to stuff
little balls at a time than trying to cram a big glob down the narrow parts of the scallop.
When you don’t think your cushion can handle more fill, just keep stuffing. Once you’re at the end,
cram whatever you can in and fold your raw edge down before meeting the other end of the cushion.
Ladder stitch to finish it off. To hold my cushion down and to make sure I was following the right
lines, I used safety pins to hold it together. But it still takes practice to finish nicely.
I'm just in bed watching queer eye. So obviously my hand stitching
could do with some work. It's done but as you can tell it's a little lumpy,
so I'm just gonna refinish it and then I'll reinforce it one more time. And here’s the
finished cushion! She’s a plushy beaut. With some thinking, this was not a difficult sewing project.
If this were bigger and required more structure, I’d have to think of ways to add volume or else
the finished product wouldn’t stand the way this small version does, but at this size
this tutorial is just right. If you want to see more of my DIYs be sure to subscribe and turn
on notifications so you don't miss a thing. And you can find me on instagram @letitiakiu.