Fish Pillow Tutorial

This step-by-step fish pillow tutorial is sponsored by Waverly Inspirations.

You guys, I am so excited!!! We got a couch for our porch! We’ve talked about getting one for ages, but something always came up. Then, out of the blue, we happened upon an end-of-season sale and scored one at more than 50% off. Yippee! What is the first thing a new couch needs? Pillows, of course!

Inspired by pillows my mom used to have I decided our outdoor space needed a fish pillow. Kind of perfect, right?

The space is a work in progress, waiting on a coffee table, and eventually I want to fill the whole couch with comfy pillows, but for now my little fish pillow makes me so happy. And look how well it goes with my rug.

Waverly Inspirations sent me a selection of summery fabric prints and ribbon, and then I went to Walmart to get the rest of the supplies needed for the fish pillow (thread and Poly-fil). Walmart also has a great selection of buttons for the fish eye, but I tend to hoard craft supplies so I had tons of buttons in my stash to choose from.

Fish Pillow Tutorial

I didn’t have a pattern for my fish pillow, just a picture in my mind of what I wanted. So I started by taping paper together and sketching the shape I wanted. I am not much of an artist, but even I can manage a simple fish shape.

Once you are happy with your shape, cut out the pattern with a ½ inch margin around the shape for sewing. Then cut the pattern into three shapes for each of the three fabrics.

After ironing the fabric, trace the patterns onto the fabric – remember to leave a half inch for sewing on the sides that had been cut from the original pattern.

If your fish shape is asymmetrical like mine, be sure to flip the pattern to trace the reverse shapes so the pillow will line up when you sew it together.

The trickiest part of this pillow is sewing the curved pieces together to form the body and the head. If you want to avoid this, cut the head and body pieces on a straight line instead of curved.

To sew the curved pieces, make small cuts along the edges of the fabrics to help curve the fabric as you pin the pieces together. After pinning in place, sew the pieces together.

Repeat to attach the tail, but no need to make small cuts if you cut the fin on a straight line.

Sew a button onto the head to form the fish’s eye. I only added a button on one side of the pillow, but you could attach one on both sides.

To form the fish fins, make three loops with ribbon. I made the middle loop slightly longer than the other two. Use your sewing machine to sew the loops together. Fold ½ inch of the bottom of the loops under. (If ribbon does not crease, use iron to form a crease.)

Attach the fin to the fish body with your machine facing the wrong direction, and then fold the fin back into place. This hides the stitching.

Tack the fin in place with a few small hand stitches. I tacked the outer yellow loops first then folded the red loop over to hide those stitches.

Again, I only placed a fin on the front of the pillow, but you can do both sides if you like.

Tip – I didn’t have red thread (didn’t think ahead), so I tacked the red loop down with white thread and then used a red marker to conceal the thread.

Pin the pillow sides together, face-to-face. Sew the sides together leaving room to stuff the pillow. (I left a rather large space for stuffing, but you can leave a smaller space if you like.)

After sewing the sides together, turn the fish right side out and stuff the pillow.

Finally, hand stitch the stuffing whole closed.

Ta-da! Fish pillow.

The pillow really isn’t hard to make, as I said the trickiest part is the curved fish head, which you could avoid.

Of course, now that we have one fish pillow, both of my daughters HAVE to have it at all times. So a second fish may be in our future. This time I think I will make a red body, blue head and yellow tail – what do you think?

Waverly Inspirations products are available exclusively at Walmart. Look for Waverly Inspirations for all of your fabric crafting needs.