Shaped Throw Pillows

Have you ever bought a really bold, statement piece for your home? One that you’re absolutely ecstatic about? When it arrives, there’s this rush of adrenaline as you frantically tear open the box to see it in the flesh; to touch it, even smell it. But then there’s a small moment where you realize you need to do some adjusting for it to fit in with the rest of your home decor. Sound familiar? Well let us tell you the story of our studio couch and the fantastic solution we stumbled upon.

Why Throw Pillows?

We recently got this awesome blue velvet couch. The thing is, though, it’s big, bold, and really needed something to help it fit in better with the ambience in our studio. It didn’t take us long to discover the perfect answer to our conundrum: an assortment of uniquely-shaped, vibrant throw pillows, designed by the very studio in which they would find their new home. That’s why the opportunity to use our brand-new, beautiful Fiskars scissors to make these shaped throw pillows for our couch was a dream come true. We designed not just the pillows inspired by the scissors, but the scissors themselves.

Custom Fiskars Scissors

Now, let me talk about these scissors for a minute. Yes, you heard me right–we are thrilled to partner up with Fiskars to release our new very own scissors! I was particularly excited (like serious, drop-dead excitement) because I have a total obsession with scissors if you haven’t seen it by now. I’ve been collecting them for years and years. I have scissors for all kinds of things–trimming, fabric, paper, kids, antique, you name it. In fact, Craft the Rainbow, my paper craft book, has a little game where you can guess the amount of scissors in it. Go ahead and try it…there are a lot 😉 

These Fiskars scissors are absolutely and exquisitely beautiful, not to mention being the perfect blend of practical and art-object, with those graceful handle curves in sharp contrast to that smooth, functional blade. You can imagine my joy, then, when Fiskars told us we’d be able to customize not only the handles, but the blades as well.

As you might guess, these puppies are phenomenal. The pattern is perfect, exactly what we had envisioned, and the combination of patterned, floral handles and colored blade?! I can’t even. They are truly spectacular; a work of art. I can’t wait for you to see them in person.

The Inspiration Behind Our Throw Pillows

Well, we put our customized Fiskars scissors to good use making their debut project: our shaped throw pillows. In fact, we really couldn’t have done it without them! You see, we used the floral design we had printed on the scissors as inspiration for our pillow designs. So not only did we use the scissors to cut out the fabric, but we used the scissors as a reference as we crafted our pillow designs, as well.

The pillows designs we settled on were: a flower, leaves, a fun two-tone circle, and a magnificent yellow squiggle. The combination of pink, orange, green and brown against our blue velvet beauty of a couch was almost too good to be true. If you need me, I’ll be in the studio–I’m going to be sitting on that couch forever, buried among those shaped throw pillows.

How to Make a DIY Shaped Throw Pillow

And now, we’re going to show you how to make your very own DIY shaped throw pillow! As a note, we’ll be presenting you with a tutorial of that iconic yellow squiggle pillow, but you can apply the steps of the tutorial to any shape you want to add to your own throw pillow collection. (We would highly recommend using our Fiskars scissors floral pattern as a reference, like we did–there are some awesome potential throw pillows in there, waiting to be made).

So you’re aware, this project is ideal for someone who has previous sewing experience. It’s fairly simple, but we won’t be going through the basics of sewing here. In other words, you may be a bit lost if this is your first time touching a sewing machine.

Materials

For this project, you’ll need:

• Our custom Fiskars scissors
• 1 yard yellow fabric (we bought ours from Harmony, a local fabric shop)
• Yellow thread
• Pillow stuffing
• Tracing or butcher paper
• Pencil
• Sewing machine
• Pins

Preparing Your Pattern

1. Using our yellow pillow as a reference, trace (with a pencil) the shape of the throw pillow onto the butcher paper. Make it a few inches larger than the finished pillow appears, to account for the fullness of the batting and seam allowances (Our pillow is roughly 3 ½ feet long).
2. Once you’re happy with the shape you have, go ahead and cut it out.

Prepping Your Fabric

1. Iron or steam out the wrinkles in your fabric.
2. Lay your fabric out flat, folded in half lengthwise (aka hot dog style). Make sure to smooth out all bumps and wrinkles so the fabric lies nice and flat.
3. When you’re done with that, you can take your freshly-prepared pattern and pin it onto your fabric, close to the edge if you want to conserve more fabric.
4. Now, cut out your fabric along the edge of the pattern, using our custom Fiskars scissors.
5. After the fabric is cut, you can remove the pattern. 
6. Now, with the wrong sides together, pin around the edges of your fabric to secure the two pieces in place.

Sewing Your Throw Pillow

1. Prep your sewing machine, then sew around the perimeter of your fabric shape, leaving a 3 or 4 inch opening on one side. You’ll use this to turn the throw pillow right side out, so make sure you don’t get carried away and sew the opening closed! Backstitch at both ends. Note: it helps to have the opening on a straighter edge of the shape–this will make it easier to sew closed.
2. Now that your throw pillow is sewn, you can turn it right side out.
3. Press the seam allowance of the opening under, so the raw edges will be hidden once it’s sewn.
4. The next step is to stuff your throw pillow with batting. You’ll see it start to take shape! Stuff it as full as you like, noting that if you stuff it very full, you’ll need to hand-sew it closed, rather than using a machine like in this tutorial.
5. Once your pillow is as full as you’d like it, you can go ahead and sew it closed.
6. Voilà! Your shaped throw pillow is done!

How to Style Your Shaped Throw Pillows

These shaped throw pillows are such a playful, unique accent piece for any room. Put them on your couch, bed, window seat, or chair and you’ve just added an instant touch of personality to your home. I love that you can pair the colors with other home decor, like posters, paintings or other wall art, furniture, or even plant pots. Shaped throw pillows do a lot to help tie disparate elements together in a room. The bonus is, they’re cozy, too! Use them as a foot rest or snuggle into them while watching a movie and you’re all set.

We can’t wait to see what you do with your own shaped throw pillows! And we want to know: what do you think of our new, custom Fiskars scissors?!

More Inspiration

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how to make your own DIY shaped throw pillow. If you did (and we have a feeling that might be the case), you’ll probably love these other DIY sewing projects. The bonus is, you can use our customized Fiskars scissors for them, too! Quilted Shower Curtain, Celtic Knot Pillow, DIY Headboard, and Paper Snowflakes.