Are you planning on quilting this yourself or sending it out? How good are you if you do it yourself? I would be tempted to leave the pillow area plain as far as piecing is concerned and do some really fancy quilting in that area. But then I enjoy doing the quilting.
As for piecing, how about a couple of stripes of flying geese across the width of the quilt in the same colors as those around the compass. Maybe each with a narrow border of the gray (used in the outer border) on each side.