AWE Knock-off pillow

This post could also be title "The Post in Which I Use a Crazy Amount of Pictures and Lots of Words Just for a Pillow." But that seemed a little long.

I love it when my At West End catalog arrives. Do you get this one? You should. I love this Paris pillow:

And it's a great price, but my hang up is that although I'd love to visit Paris, I've never been. And while I find great inspiration in all things french, I'm not all that french-crazed. I just couldn't feel connected to the Paris pillow.

I started a bit of a travel theme in our living room awhile back. I got tired of only having my own artwork on the walls, and I wanted an affordable change. I love great graphic design and vintage ads are a great source.

So I went to All Posters and searched for vintage travel posters, and I was looking for ones that had orange in them since that was my main accent color. But there were too many great ones, so I further narrowed myself down to U.S. Travel.

So, a latitude and longitude pillow would fit right in. I settled on Boston. It's where Mateo and I began our married life.

I had some muslin, but I wanted a brighter color. So I bought some fabric dye.

And started dying the fabric.

I'll be honest, I didn't completely follow the directions. I didn't have an hour to dedicate to the process, and it came out fine. Disregard the directions at your own risk.

So, then I had to convince myself to actually get out my sewing machine. We haven't been friends lately. However, it is well protected.

I often have a sniper keeping watch when I sew. Life with little boys. ;)

I had a pillow form I was working with, so I just sewed it to the proper dimensions. Turned it right sides out.

On the computer I looked up the latitude and longitude for Boston and typed up my whole image. Then I had to mirror image it, and I printed it on iron transfer paper.

I considered painting it, but I thought this would give it a much cleaner look. So, I followed the instruction to use the transfer.

I didn't heat the edges enough, so I laid the transfer paper back down and pressed again with the iron.

Stuffed my pillow inside, sewed up the side by hand and I have my Boston pillow.

I love it. It fits right into my scheme, and it means something to us.

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