Throw pillows that is! This weekend The Builder got started on our new media cabinet (which is almost done!) for our living room and I knew that the pillows I bought last year to go on the sofa were all wrong for the room. I think they became wrong the minute I put up the aqua drapes I got at Ikea. The pillows themselves are only about a year old and it good condition. I really didn't want to have to go out and try to find pillows to coordinate. First of all, throw pillows are EXPENSIVE! Seriously, retailers have a very high opinion of throw pillows when they run $30+ for a single pillow (and why are the ones I always really like closer to the $45 price?!). The original 3 came from Garden Ridge last year for about $15 a piece, which is about where I top out for throw pillows. So this go around, I decided to make pillow covers in fabric of my choosing. I also like the idea of being able to to unzip them and throw them in the laundry when they start getting dingy. And with kids, this is a common occurrence in my house. I inserted invisible zippers to make them easy to pull off and throw in the laundry. I also decided to mix up the fabrics a little bit. The fabric was on sale at fabric.com which was an added bonus. I bought a yard of each and had enough to do two 16 inch throw pillows in the floral fabric and one of geometric print for the large pillows. I estimate the large pillow was close to 20 inches. If you look at the picture at the top of the page, you can see the piping I inserted on all the pillows. I almost left it off. I didn't have any on hand when I started sewing up the pillows on Sunday, and it started pouring rain Saturday afternoon. I don't like driving out in the rain with all the crazy people, so I seriously debated leaving the piping off. Ultimately, I was also short a large zipper for the geometric print, which necessitated a trip to Joann's and thus I bought the piping too. Yes, I could have just made coordinating piping, but it's one of those tedious projects that I really don't like to do. I'm happy with the purchased piping and The Builder likes it too. I'm actually thinking I would like several more throw pillows on the sofa, but I didn't buy extra fabric, so I'll have to give that some thought. I could do solid pillows. But that would be later on down the road. Right now I'm happy with this just as it is.
I didn't just finish the throw pillows though, I also made another pillow for our bed. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I like it :-/ This is the Euro Pillow sham I made for our bed. I love the quilted fabric and how it turned out. I'm not thrilled with the color. It's more of a yellow based white than a grey based white. None of the white toned fabrics in the bedroom have a yellow tone to them, so I'm not sure this really works. I'm going to finish the other pillows that go on the bed (I seem to be having a pillow fetish for our bed these days!) before I make my final decision. I have the pillow form and fabric to make one more, and this one wasn't difficult by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not sure it's worth the time if it really won't work in this room. I'm working on my Vera Wang pillow inspiration next. This was a $45 pillow that was sold at Kohl's. That was the sale price. Seriously, WHO buys a throw pillow on sale at that price?! I have the pillow form already. The fabric was $6 from fabric.com (I really got my money's worth on that fabric order!). I bought the coordinating felt at Joann's for 34 cents. Altogether, my copy cat pillow will cost $7. When it's ready, I'll let you be the judge!
Ok, sneak peak of the media cabinet The Builder has been working on this weekend!
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