Easy Color-Block Throw Pillows

A few weeks ago I posted about my new DIY coffee table, which I made out of raw steel and plywood.

The coffee table photos also revealed that I had gotten a new rug. I had been considering this for awhile, since the light green was feeling pretty washed out with the light gray couch (we had a dark gray couch when we first got the rug).

I really wanted to punch up the living room with some more vibrant color, and West Elm’s Sivas Wool Kilim Rug in Macaroon Pink had caught my attention months ago and held it ever since:

But I knew I needed a 9×12, and at $849 plus tax and shipping it was pricier than I was prepared to spend — even though I had a $200 gift card to apply toward it. I kept watching sales come and go, but they never brought the price down to where I felt comfortable. And then one day, a 30%-off sale on rugs brought the price for the 9×12 down to $594. At $250 off the original price, I knew it was unlikely to go much lower.

So I pulled the trigger, and it arrived just as I was finishing up the coffee table. I absolutely love how they look together, and they bring so much life to the living room. Sam really likes the rug too, which is awesome because it was risky with so much pink.

The next step was to add some additional color through new throw pillows, since I’d sewed the other throw pillows ages ago and they were a pretty muted color scheme more fit for the dark gray couch. I bet you barely noticed them in the above pictures because they’re so dull.

Throw pillows are annoyingly expensive, though, so I decided to buy a few new ones but also sew some of my own. I thought that a variety of color-block patterns could be a fun way to bring in lots of colors that tie to the pinks, yellows, and blues in the room, so my first step was to buy an array of solid color fabric. I like Fabric.com for inexpensive fabric, and I ordered a yard each of 7 different “Kona Cotton” fabrics for $42.

I wanted to experiment with different color blocking patterns and combinations, and ended up putting together five different covers.

Here’s how I did it!

First, I collected the pillows I wanted to recover.

Then I removed their old covers, leaving me with their original forms.

I worked one pillow at a time. The first step was to measure the dimensions of the pillow I was working with, and cut blocks of fabric that would add up to the right length and width plus a few extra inches for a seam allowance.

I started with a simple triangle pattern in pink, cutting one triangle for the top and one for the bottom:

I placed them together outside-faces-in, and sewed them together along the long edge:

Then I laid them on the ironing board to press the seam.

 

For the back, I cut a square in the darker pink, and placed the front and back together with the outside faces together. Next I sewed around all the edges leaving a 1″ seam, and leaving a gap of about 8″ on one side. I turned the cover rightside-out, and then stuffed the pillow form in. Lastly, I hand-sewed the opening closed.

And with that, I had my first pillow!

I repeated this basic process four more times, playing around with different configurations of fabric.

Three triangles in blue and white:

The trick with this one is to first sew the two smaller triangles together, then sew that new single piece to the larger triangle exactly like in the pink pillow above.

Another simple triangle pattern in yellow and white:

 

Yellow stripes:

And lastly, a slightly more complex piecing.

For this one, I cut the pink piece first and then used a paper bag to help me cut a simple pattern to get the blue pieces to be the right size to add up to a complete square.

Overall, it took me a few hours camped out in the sun room, which was nice and warm with sunshine:

I put three of them in living room (the other two in the sun room), mellowing out their bright jewel tones with some earthier pillows I grabbed at Target on sale for $14 each:

I’m loving how they add color on the couch and tie into the blue, pink, and yellow throughout the room!

(Sharing at Idea Box Thursday, Remodelaholic, Brag Worthy Thursday, Tip Me Tuesday, Two Uses Tuesday, and Think and Make Thursday)