At long last... throw pillows!

Only a short 8 months after I bought the fabric to turn our existing brown couch pillows into fabulous throw pillows, I have completed the project! What took so darn long, you wonder? Well, frankly, life...and our little condo. The sewing machine was tucked away in a closet, which meant bringing it out and setting it up.

My original plan was to take the pillows already on the couch, use the stuffing, the zipper, and the edging to create new pillows to match our lampshades (to some degree). I picked out this polka dot circular pattern - I loved the colours and the graphics and knew that it would be a great addition to the brown couch. I even got off to an ambitious start by cutting out the fabrics. I figured out how to add the zipper by examining how the old pillow was put together, and I even got as far as getting one pillow unstuffed and ripped apart - and that is how it stayed for the next several months.  It was a little sad, actually, to see all the parts splayed on the floor...

Well, I think Matt got tired of seeing that little pillow, stuffing out and about, just lying in the condo, and I knew I had to finish what I had started. I managed to get the zipper in quite nicely (this turned out to be an easier route than I had thought it might be...and doesn't require any hand stitching after stuffing!), but when it came to the edging, I learned the hard way that it wouldn't be quite as easy. I stitched one side, but after much frustration, I decided, for my sanity, to rip it out and just keep the pillow plain and simple. And really, when I set my mind to it, completing both pillows took me just over an hour! You would have thought I might have found an hour in the last 8 months to put these two together...

Let's take a look at the before and after shots (my FAVOURITE part of any makeover/renovation by far! Oh, that and the Big Reveal....)

The zipper is nicely concealed at the back, and the great thing is that these are completely removable and washable. And the cost for making them? Only about $20 bucks for the fabric! Since I reused all the essential elements, this was a quick and cheap way to update our couch. And I even learned a thing or two about how to add zippers to fabric.