Yesss! I finally purchased one of my boho home-décor crushes! Or should I say YAAAS! since that's how I presented it to you
in pink. And while I waited for my order to arrive, I changed up the rest of my bedding ensemble to work with it.
, when this colorful picture of tiered rice fields in China reminded me of this throw.
I wanted to embellish my own coverlet, but I very soon realized I was in over my head. A simpler and more effective choice—and one my talents are more suited to—would be to BUY an embellished coverlet and sew custom pillows and window treatments to go with it.
, but settled on Open Market because I wanted a “sunrise bedroom” instead of sunset this time around.
Remember this pick dot coverlet I already owned? This isn’t my bed pictured, but I dressed my bed in this coverlet and lived with it a few days before deciding I just couldn’t go with it for the long haul.
It wrinkles too much (and doesn’t respond to ironing), and something about the color is too cool (as in hue). It’s a cool ivory, if that makes sense. Anyway, it left me cold as well, so I hunted around for alternatives and came up with three. I couldn’t decide without seeing them on the bed and so ordered all to compare them in my room in my light.
Here are the three choices I narrowed it down to:
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| Soft Surroundings / Target / Soft Surroundings |
LEFT: At first glance, you could mistake the
Luxe Super Stitch Velvet Quilt for the pick dot, but they couldn’t be more different. VELVET is the biggest difference, of course. This quilt from Soft Surroundings is sooooo plush AND the ivory is
warm. The photo doesn’t do it justice, believe me. The quilt sold for over $250 but was on clearance in the SS Outlet for closer to $100.
MIDDLE: I found the
Threshold Chenille-Stitched Cream Quilt at Target, where it retails for just under $80 and is often on sale for even less. The reviews said it was puffy and warm, and I liked the texture the unique chenille wave stitching added.
RIGHT: The
Sumptuous Chenille Blanket, also from the SS Outlet, was a steal at $50 (original price over $100) but was only available in champagne. I thought it might even work under one of the two off-white choices, with its sweet line of fringe peeking out on each side, as well as on its own, but I was concerned the color leaned too far toward gold.
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| Anthropologie |
By the time I finally received a 20-percent-off President’s Day coupon from Anthropologie so I could order my Open Market Throw, all three of my coverlet choices had arrived. I opened the boxes and felt each one, but waited until the throw also arrived and the shams were done to dress the bed and make my choice.
In the meantime, I spent A LOT of time on Ebay, accessorizing
First I hunted for fabrics I thought would look good with the Open Market throw. I had three Euro pillows I planned to bring out of storage, so I needed shams for those plus enough fabric for a new window valance.
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| Ebay seller photos |
After an exhaustive (and exhausting) search and a lot of hemming and hawing, I narrowed it (don’t laugh now) to these 12 fabrics. It took a while for me to convince myself I couldn’t justify buying a yard of each (the minimum cut) and using all. Reluctantly, the monkey print at the top was the first to go because of price.
My VERY favorite of the lot was the magenta toile to the left of the monkey print, but it, too, hit the cutting room floor, so to speak, for several reasons. It was $60 for 10 yards—a great price but MUCH more fabric than I needed, and it shipped from the United Kingdom, which meant a hefty shipping fee plus a potentially long wait.
Eventually I settled on these three prints. I liked the Wave Stripe in Apricot Spice for its midcentury modern appeal and decided it would be the dominant print. I ordered three yards at $21 per yard. It was the most expensive of the three fabrics, however it retailed for around $80 per yard.
The Dedra Ikat in Prune Purple I thought would accentuate the several thin bands of purple running through the Open Market Throw. I got a yard of it for the bargain basement price of $8.95! It’s
woven ikat as opposed to printed, which means the thread is dyed in alternating bands of purple and white, which creates the blurry edges on the pattern as it’s woven. It’s a Colonial Williamsburg print and retails for over $40. I also like the ethnic boho feel it adds to the mix.
I chose Vervain’s Peking print in cranberry not only for its beautiful colors, but also because I have a lot of Chinese art and porcelain in my bedroom and it would help tie in those items. Two of the prints above my bed, in fact, done in the Chinese style, feature those very same shades of green and cranberry.
The wave stripe is a synthetic, heavier upholstery fabric, whereas the other two are 100-percent cotton. Typically, I’d suggest sticking with similar content and weight fabrics, but I just couldn’t live without that stripe.
Ebay makes it so easy to find fabrics you won’t see in your local fabric stores at unheard-of discounted pricing. While shopping for some other notions last week, I did a quick check of the home deco fabrics in stock at my local Joann Fabrics and found NOTHING that caught my eye, so I felt pretty good about my Ebay purchases.
Deciding how to mix and match prints
I didn’t want the shams to be matchy-matchy, so decided to use a simple patchwork design that would change fabric position from pillow to pillow to pillow.
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| Via Pinterest |
These pillows on Pinterest were closest to what I imagined for my own. I like how the one on the left rotates the stripes, how the one in the middle uses three different prints in bands, and how the one on the right splits the fabric in the top and bottom bands while leaving the middle band whole and deeper than the others.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
My finished shams do a little of each. At first I regretted splitting up the top and bottom bands and considered ordering more fabric and redoing the right and left shams, keeping the center band in the stripe but turning it horizontally. It wasn’t a task or an expense I particularly wanted, though, and after I saw the shams with the throw, I like them as is. They're fun, kicky and boho—just like me.
Keeping the measurements and prints straight was a bit of a muddle, so I made myself this diagram using the drawing tools in Microsoft PowerPoint to serve as a cutting guide for the fronts, checking each section off as I cut.
My pillows are 26-inches square, so I added an inch both ways to each piece for seam allowances and incorporated those cutting dimensions into the diagram. I opted for envelope backs in lieu of zippered seams, which meant I needed two pieces for each back—each 1/2 the width of the pillow plus five inches for overlap.
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| James Thompson |
I also settled on this valance style, even though I dreaded cutting out the curved bottom. I ditched the looped top in favor of a simple rod pocket for a cleaner look.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
But I doubled up on the tassels. The lower tassels hang from buttons, while the upper tassels simply slide onto the rod. I love the extra little bit of oomph they give, particularly when using four instead of two like in the inspiration.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
I didn’t get the middle dip in the valance exactly to my liking, but the curves are perfect and, overall, I’m pleased. I'm hoping those two extra tassels draw the eye elsewhere!
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
I had about a yard of the wave stripe left and used it to make double-sided mats to cover the tops of my nightstands. Sorry for the lack of bedside-table styling, but with a CPAP machine (right) and a mask-cleaning device (left) on EACH nightstand (not sexy, I know, but welcome to middle age), I needed something heavier that would stay in place. The scarves I’d been using always bunched up.
As an aside: Don’t you love how my funky necklace looks on the lampshade?
Now, for the big decision: which coverlet to choose.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
And the winning coverlet was (if you were paying attention in the earlier shots, you’d know) the caramel-colored Sumptuous Chenille Blanket. My husband and I both agreed, but I waited until AFTER he gave me his verdict before revealing we BOTH picked the most cost-effective option.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
The blanket’s champagne color is a close match to the headboard upholstery, the walls and the carpet, which lends a serene, collected quality to the room, particularly when the afternoon light spills in the west-facing window. I see lots of photos of white or off-white coverlets, and I love them, but in my bedroom, something about the two off-white choices left me underwhelmed.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
The Open Market throw has its share of off-white weavings and tassels, but its caramel-colored sections, shot with metallic gold thread, positively came to life with the champagne chenille blanket as its foundation.
I just love the profusion of spring color in this throw—magenta pink, dusty rose, purple, and coral in the base and rust, coral and orangey-orange in the tassels. There’s also a variety of neutrals—ivory, caramel and gray.
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
The throw itself is full of movement and texture. But notice that I added more by alternating the direction of the Wave Stripe. In the valance and the corners of the two outside pillows it runs horizontally. whereas in the center band of the middle pillow and the table mats it runs vertically.
BTW, what is that dark spot between the pillows and the throw?
Before and after
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| Susan Lawson photos / BoHo Home |
Here’s a photo of how the bedroom looked before (left) and how it looks now (right). Which do you like best? I think both are pretty, but…
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
I’m partial to the boho “spring” version and my Anthropologie Open Market Throw.
As for Maisie…
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| Susan Lawson photo / BoHo Home |
She's already lined up endorsements for that chenille blanket. All I can say is, ‘bout time she started earning her keep. It's all I can do to get her to budge from this spot (my side) come bedtime. ;->
Until Thursday...
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