More New Pillows

Remember these beautiful, graphic houndstooth pillows that I saw on Apartment Therapy?

Source

So, these pillows haunted me.  I wanted them so bad!  And I couldn't seem to find any fabric online that was both as large in scale as these and in blue, which is what I had my heart set on.  I had several ideas for how to execute what I was looking for...including screenprinting (which didn't seem worth it since I only needed to make about a fat quarter's worth of fabric), appliquing (which seemed like a lot of work to not know exactly how the final product might look), and painting (which I actually tried and quickly learned that it was just too messy...and stiff).  I picked the brain of my uber-creative friend Kate who had some interesting ideas, including crocheting/knitting, which could be super cool, but I just wasn't willing to put in the effort. 

In the end, I went with what was arguably an obvious choice.  I designed my own jumbo blue houndtooth and made my own fabric thanks to Spoonflower where you can basically get anything you want printed on a variety of different fabric choices.  I created this design using my recently downloaded Inkscape software.

At first, I'd dismissed Spoonflower as an option, simply because I thought it would be too expensive.  I mean, I paid $27 for a yard of cotton-linen blend canvas (which is easily outside my fabric pricing comfort zone).  However, I can get about 6 pillow covers out of a yard if I use a plain backing.  So, if you think about it, it's not such a bad deal at all. 

Anyway, I'm loving my new pillows, and I'm so glad those Apartment Therapy pillows haunted me into creating my own!

I also threw together some new accent pillows for the bed.  We have a teal coverlet with no shams.  I felt like it looked a little plain, so I finally put some bargain fabric to use to make a couple of little lumbar pillows that I think are just enough to pass the Michael test.

I picked up a roll of Ikea window shade fabric from Goodwill a couple of years ago for $3.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but for about 10 feet of fabric it was a great deal that I knew I had to snatch up.  I paired it with some beige quilting cotton and some leftover batting and stuffed it full of, er, stuffing.  Done and done.

 

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