DIY Shark Pillow

While I’m away, living it up in New Orleans (follow along #TCBinNOLA), Becky from Patchwork Posse is teaching us how to make our own DIY Shark Pillow! What a treat to have a sewing project on TCB. I know you all loved learning how to make a Maxi Skirt and also this DIY Cinderella Shirt.

DIY Shark Pillow

This is one of my favorite applique projects I’ve done in a long while. My oldest boy loves sharks and this little pillow seemed the perfect little addition to his bed.

You can choose to use a pieced fabric for the body or just one piece… either will work. I used raw edge applique, but feel free to use your favorite applique method. I’m kind of a quick and quirky kind of sewer, sew raw edge applique is what I usually use.

If a pillow isn’t your thing, it would work great on bags or shrink the template a bit and put it on the front of a shirt.

Materials Needed to Make a Shark Pillow:

pieces of gray fabric to make your shark body and fin fabric
red fabric – mouth
1/2″ X 5″ white ric rac
Heat n Bond Lite by Thermoweb

Shark Templates– Download here! {included with the template is instructions for sewing up a shark pencil case!}

*** you will need to adjust the shark template before using! Cut out the template and then cut right down the center of the shark, from mouth to the center of the tail fins. Then OVERLAP the templates 1/2″ and then tape into place. This will make the shark a little more narrow. The template was made larger to accommodate a seam down the center, which this does not, thus the adjustment.

Shark Pillow Instructions~

1) Piece together your bits of fabric until they are large enough to cover the applique templates– this is the mile a minute method, similar to string piecing. Tutorial here is you need a refresher!

2) Follow the instructions for the heat n bond- iron, cut out and set aside– you will need to do one additional piece which is not on the template pattern. You will need to trace and cut the end of the shark mouth in red fabric.

3) Sew up the size of background you need for your pillow size– I was covering a small travel pillow form that Jarom has on his bed. The first pillow cover was the ‘what does a fox say’ {tutorial found here!}. This made the sizing and sewing super quick and easy.

4) Lay the shark pieces in place— tuck the side fins under the shark body

* At the mouth area you will need to put the red piece down first, then the shark body. Take your ric rac and tuck the one side of bumps under the shark mouth. The other bumps will be overlapping the red area of the mouth. The ends of the ric rac will be tucked under the shark body to keep them from unraveling.

5) Carefully fuse all pieces in place

6) Sew straight quilting lines on the patchwork body

7) Sew the outside edge using your favorite applique method. For this shark, I decided to do raw edge- tutorial here if you’d like a refresher on that.

8) Place the center fin in the middle of the shark, fuse in place and stitch around the edge to secure- Jarom did mention that it would have been slightly cooler if I had made the center fin 3-D. I had thought about doing that, but didn’t. Totally should have! If you’d like your fin to pop out then make the fin double sided and then sew one end on top of the body, the top of the fin will not be sewn down and will be double sided. Fun!

* Around the mouth area I did the 1/8″ raw edge stitch on the shark mouth and a second stitch just under the edge and on top of the ric rac to make sure that the stitches caught the ric rac and secured it in place