monogram tea towel pillow

Some of you may have spotted the new Martha Stewart line by Plaid available at Michael's. It's been quite the buzz on the blogs lately. Several bloggers, including myself, were asked to try out the new products and tools and boy, did we get a big box of goodies to try. Here's what I made...

...a hand painted monogram pillow out of an antique linen tea towel. (This towel was not in pristine condition, so don't fret.)

I used the fabric medium and mixed it with equal parts paint. This hand sponge applicator is ideal for stenciling, so I put it to good use on this project.

A tip when stenciling fabric - make sure to put something under the area you're painting, so it doesn't bleed through. I usually use tin foil.

I then selected my stencils and punched them out.

These are from the Serif Stencil Set.

Using a ruler to find the center point, I lined up the stencil.

I held it tightly in place and gently pressed on the sponge to release the paint. Don't push too hard or you will get major bleeding under the stencil.

I rotated the stencil to complete the frame. Work carefully to prevent smudging.

I then added the center monogram, a capitol "P".

...and then a lower case "m" and "v". At this point, it looks a bit sloppy, but that is not uncommon with stencils, especially on fabric. Since these stencils are made out of heavy paper, I think in the future I will trace the design with a pencil and paint it in by hand. But, no worries, we'll get this looking sharp.

I used a 1.0 liner brush to fill in the gaps and give it a sharp look.

I also added a pop of apple green between the gray lines.

Once the paint was dry, which only took about 15 minutes, I kept the tea towel folded in half with the right-sides-out, sewed each side closed and inserted an 18" x 18" feather pillow form.