Throw Pillows for the Duvet

I ran into a road block while finishing off the duvet cover.  The queen-sized duvet cover was so large, I didn't have a good place to spread it out and pin on the back cover.  While I attempted to lay it out on the floor in my hall, I didn't have enough room to stretch out the wrinkles.  So, I decided to work on another part of the project before finding a place to pin the duvet. 

I started on the matching pillowcases.  While my sister already decided on a gray fabric for the standard pillow shams, it took me awhile to come up with a layout I liked for the throw pillows.  I wanted to include elements that were in the duvet itself.  I put the floral fabric in a centered rectangle with thin pink and green borders.  However, I couldn't decide what fabric to use for the majority of the throw pillow.  I was trying to decide between the blue fabric and the black polka-dot fabric.



I finally decided to use a combination.  The main fabric was the black polka-dot fabric, with small side borders of blue fabric.  (Another factor in my decision, was that I had more polka-dot fabric.)   I used a white fabric for the envelope back cover.

Throughout this project, I have learned a lot about ways to conserve fabric.  For example, I only had thin strips of the floral fabric.  I had to sew two small strips together to form the center rectangle.  Although I couldn't match the patterns together exactly, I tried to make it as "seamless" as I could.  My supply of pink and green fabric was also fairly low, so I could only do thin borders with them.