Pillow Cover Fail

Ugh.  My pillow cover project has hit a serious snag.  I worked on it quite a bit yesterday, and I've lost confidence in my project plan.  The combination of fabrics I've chosen turned out to be very Christmassy with all the red and gold and semi-snowflakey patterns on two of the fabrics.  That's okay for the short term, but what I'm really going for is a combination of gold, red, and orange to marry the cool cherry-red of our couch with the warm rusts, golds, and dusky blues of our Oriental rug (no, I'm not an old lady racist...that's just the style of rug).  Beautiful heirloom rug, beautiful modern couch...these things do not go together easily.  Plus, our bookshelves, coffee table, and TV stand are dark wood, the dining table and side table are oak, and we have a gold-dominated Klimt print over the fireplace.  Maybe pillow covers won't solve all our style problems, but they've got to help.  Our current throw pillows came with the sofa and are both hideous and ratty.  Max has been systematically dismantling them with his claws and teeth...that cat can't get enough polyester.

I started out trying to follow Amy Butler's Big Dot Pillow from In Stitches.  I used five different fabrics, cut in random thin strips and stitched together lengthwise, to create the dots.

Then I cut out 3" and 4" diameter circles to applique onto my background fabric.  I set up my satin stitch presser foot (for the very first time!) and pinned the circles in place.

I fooled around with the tension settings on my machine and did a practice run, which came out a little bit puckered but okay.  I messed with the settings some more and started satin stitching around the big dots.  Yuck.  Puckered fabric, unevenness, the circle looked like an amoeba.  My background fabric is too lightweight and it just doesn't look good.  So....now to decide what to do with this fabric.  I like the patchwork, so I'll keep that and do some other design with it.  I also ran out of my special multi-colored thread.  Crap.  To be continued.