Pretty Pillows and Dirty Secrets

I've been working on pillows for our living room for a while now, and while I'm not completely done (still working on pillows for the love seat), the two for the chairs and the huge lumbar pillow for the sofa are finished.  (Is it still considered a lumbar pillow if it's that huge, or is there another class of pillow entirely that it belongs to?)  

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few of the dirty little secrets surrounding the making of these pillows.  In case you hadn't noticed, I'm apt to cut corners a bit if it will save me some time or money (or both) and not affect the outcome too much.  Just look through my project files for a plethora of examples.

So when I decided that I wanted a huge lumbar pillow for the sofa, and when I realized that buying a huge lumbar insert would cost more than I had spent on the sofa itself, my mind turned toward the mound of unused down featherbeds in our storage closet.  Why we have five unused featherbeds, or even where they came from is completely beyond me.  And though the thought would normally have triggered a rant about keeping stuff around the house that we have no intention of using, I decided to capitalize on the mound of free feathers.  All that to say, I cut up a featherbed to the size of a huge lumbar pillow and whipstitched it closed.  Viola - free huge down lumbar pillow.

The fabric for the cover was a tablecloth that I found on clearance at Target (I think by DwellStudios).  Another big money saver (I think I was around $15).
My mom graciously agreed to help with the pillow cover and put in a lovely hidden zipper.  No corners cut here. (Probably because I didn't do the sewing.)

For the two chair pillows, I had planned to do envelope covers because they're removable, easy to make, and don't require zippers.

But just before starting, I realized that the pillows that had come with the sofa were covered in the same neutral canvas and had nice zippered backs.

So naturally I frankensteined them -- cut the backs off the old pillow covers and sewed them to the new fronts.  Instant easy zippered pillow covers.

And by "I" I of course mean my mom.  :)  Thanks, mom.