Cushion Tutorial – V-Shaped

Alongside Muslins another top recommendation from parents is to invest in a feeding pillow. These come in all sorts of shapes and sizes from doughnut shaped through to V-Shaped. I think this one can be used during pregnancy as well to help get a comfy position to sleep in. I bought it for use as a feeding cushion to help prop the baby up and at the end if the day…you can’t have too many cushions! This one was very reasonably priced at £6.99 from the local ALDI store however the pillowcase supplied was thin and white. White is not a good colour for me as I can get it dirty just by looking at it and it is just a bit boring….So a revamp was called for….

The local charity shop was raided and I came up trumps with a duvet cover in in yellow and green gingham. The charity shop is very pot luck with lots of granny-esque specimens but if you can find a duvet cover you like then you have a source of cheap cotton…this one cost me 50p. This is how I did it:
1. I laid it out on the table and laid the original pillowcase on top as a template. The cunning bit is to use the existing hem and closures wherever possible – save on a bit of sewing! I lined the pillowcase up against the side of the duvet to create a natural join and used the poppered hem at the bottom for the opening.
2. The next step is to cut around your template. This can be tricky as I found with this duvet one side didn’t exactly match up with the other. You can solve this by separating the sides and treating each as a separate bit of fabric or allow yourself some extra seam allowance. I opted for the latter.

3. To help deal with the overlap I turned the duvet so the right sides were facing and then pinned the original pillowcase to the fabric. This helped me negotiate any areas where the seams were cutting it a bit fine. Just be careful not to sew the original pillowcase down as well!!

4. Sew around all the closed edges of the pillowcase leaving one end open (the end with the Poppers).

The picture below shows the mismatch in the two materials even though they were even when I Cut them out!

5. Trim away the excess fabric from the hem.
6. Turn right sides out and use!
Below you can see both sides of the finished cushion cover as well as a close up of the original hem and popper fasteners that now form the closures. I need to add another couple just to make it a firmer close but definitely an easy make and for less than 50p!