Pillows

We (and by we, I really mean just me) are a little tired of the way our living/dining room looks.  The same artwork, furniture etc. has been here pretty much since we moved in 5 years ago, and that is just too long without a change.  The only thing that HAS changed in that time is the way the furniture is arranged (which frankly can only be in 2 different ways now) and the addition of so many kid/baby toys.

First, we bought a new fairly neutral rug for the living area.  The old one was browns and blues and it kind of dictated what you could do.  So we bought a fairly inexpensive large rug (we have 2 small children so we want to be able to toss it in a few years) that is just browns.

Our brown couches (they form a sectional when together) have seen better days, but are still basically in very good condition.  Again I think I am just tired of them.  They came with 2 medium (roughly 20 inch) pillows that were the same color as the couch.  And they were on the couch for 5 years until I finally decided to make some new pillows to help liven up the place.

I found some fun, modern fabric to make 8 pillows (5 go on the big couch and 3 on the smaller loveseat) using this awesome tutorial.  If you are frightened of zippers, don't be!  This is the best way to make pillows in my opinion.  It allows you to have a zipper (so you can take off the covers and wash them! yay!), but keeps it hidden so that the zipper pull doesn't scratch you (like my old couch pillows did).  And it does not require an invisible zipper like other tutorials I have found.

Anyways, here is the final product (all on the big couch...not how they normally lie).  Ignore the dining room mess in the back.  Working on that area after I do 2 new pieces of art for the living room. Hoping to make a new table for that area (with my father-in-law's help), get new chairs, make a big piece of wall art, and refinish a piece to use as a sideboard too. 

 I was very excited to finally get to use some chevron...love that pattern!  Here is a close up of the back...you can kind of see the flap where the zipper is hidden.  Not too noticeable on busy fabrics like this one.

 The flap is much more noticeable on the chevron pillows...the first one I did, I tried to match up the pattern and that was just a beast so for the 2nd chevron pillow, I intentionally turned the fabric for the flap because I thought it looked better. 

I'm very happy with how they turned out and it really was a quick project.  Only took me about 4.5 hours total which includes all the cutting, ironing, pinning and sewing.  Not bad for 8 pillows!