Have You Met My Pillows?

Oh my, nearly a week has gone by since their completion and I have not mentioned a word about my new living room pillows. And I know you all have been anxiously awaiting a decorating update (ha!).

This project was of course kicked off by the great living room rearrangement back in August. With the new setup you can see all the furniture more from the rest of the house, and it irked me that nothing really matched. So after at least a dozen trips to and from the fabric store with samples (and one time with an entire bolt of fabric), I finally settled on the cheapest option of all (yay for that) and the one that is the most "neutral" as far as overall decorating style.

My "inspiration piece" was the very first quilt I ever made, shown here up close and on the back of our big blue couch.

This quilt is rather small, and I did not do the greatest job with the binding so it is a touch on the fragile side. As a result it has remained folded up in the blanket chest since its completion four years ago. But I have always loved it and it matches the couch very nicely, so up it went. The next obstacle was deciding how to complement the quilt without going too much in the "country" direction. I found the dark brown curtains at Target, which helped put some color on the wall, and for the pillows I decided on a basic red and cream check, and coordinating solid red and cream fabrics. I still have a couple of ideas in mind for some other accent pillows but those are on hold until I have my sewing machine back.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I even made my own piping for the pillows on the couch and installed zippers in all of them. I think the best part of this project was the time spent sewing, and thinking about my mom. I have to give her huge credit for my ability to tackle projects like this. She never really "taught" me to sew, and any time she tried I often got frustrated, but somehow all those years of hanging around the sewing room while she worked on curtains and slipcovers, and making trips to the fabric store with her, and studying the things she made really seeped into my brain and came flowing out on my first attempt at home-dec sewing.