Abstract: An inflatable air cushion for use as a safety device in an automobile is made of two blanks cut from strips of fabric interwoven with one another along a seam extending along the peripheries of the blanks. The strips are initially flat, but include at least two side regions spaced from and on opposite sides of the central axis of the resulting cushion and running parallel to either the weft or warp threads of the fabric. These side regions are shrinkable under the influence of heat to a greater degree than a region lying between them to give each blank a convex shape and giving the cushion a more desirable rounded shape when inflated than if made with flat blanks. The ability to form the blanks into convex shapes by heat shrinking avoids the need for employing other more complicated and time consuming shaping procedures.