Faux Grain Sack Pillow

I've been loving all the faux grain sack pillows I'm seeing on Pinterest and blogs so today I decided to try my hand at it.

A 'vintage' feed sack towel from Joann Fabrics, a graphic from the Graphics Fairy, and an image transfer tutorial  and voila! A faux grain sack pillow.

Once I figured out how to get the transfer onto the towel without looking smeary the project went very quickly. I transferred the image to the center of the towel. Then I folded the bottom up and the top down to form an envelope of sorts. Sewed down each side and tucked a pillow form inside. Easy peasy. It could even be a no-sew project; just used Stitch Witchery at the sides and iron it to fuse it.

This is what the back looks like. The ends just overlap forming the 'envelope'. No closure needed. :)

Below is the graphic I used. I just edited out the background and reversed the image. Then I printed it on my laser printer and used CitraSolv to transfer it.

A few things I learned:
     #1 Iron the fabric to remove wrinkles. Wrinkles make it hard to keep the paper with the image perfectly still. (Imperative!)
   
     #2 Fasten your paper with the image WELL. You do not want it to move AT ALL! I used a combo of pins and tape.

     #3 Too much CitraSolv will make the image run. :(

I learned this by trial and error. My 3rd try was the one I was happy enough with to use. (Thankfully the towels come 3 to a pack!)

As a side note: Is CitraSolv the same thing as Goo Gone?! It sure smells and looks the same. Wondering if anyone has ever tried image transfers with Goo Gone. :) I bet it would work just as well.

Here's the pillow residing in it's new home.

The chair was another DIY project. I'll share before and afters in another post. :)

EDIT: I'm including the edited image in this post if you want to grab it for your own project.

Linking this project to:

Wow us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style