loulouthi bed makeover
Monday, July 18th, 2011
Of the few things I take very seriously, my sleep is one of them. My bed has such a heavenly mattress that I love it a little more than a person should love a thing. And of course, my comfy bed has got to be pretty too. (I totally believe that the aesthetics of our environments affect our mood.) So the transitioning of the winter comforter to the summer comforter was the perfect time for a bed makeover.
For me the simple, right-sides-together duvet cover has become the go-to when I want something for my own bed but there’s not enough time (or I’m too impatient) to make a new quilt. When you have a large print to show off it’s especially perfect. I had been dying to get my hands on the the huge-scale prints in the Loulouthi collection in particular. The tricky thing is, a queen duvet cover requires 2 widths of fabric, and with prints this big they had to be matched. It turned out much better than I anticipated, only needed about a foot of extra fabric and I just pinned before sewing. Barely noticeable!
And since I like to change things up a lot, the back has a contrasting print so I can flip it if I’m in a more purpley mood.
The fabric particulars:
- duvet front fabric: Summer Totem in Grapefruit
- duvet back fabric: Framed in Shadow
- 4 3/4 yards for each side of a full/queen duvet
- pillowcases: Stockings in Twist
- 1 yard per pillowcase
My duvet cover sewing tips:
- Don’t bother squaring up until after you’ve sewn the two sides together. When I square up first, by the time I’m done sewing the sides and top together, the bottom don’t match up anyway so I have to square up again before hemming.
- As in making pillow shams, if you make your duvet cover slightly smaller than the duvet, the corners will stay put and be nice and full. My duvet is 82″ square, and I usually make my duvet covers about 81″ square.
- Closing the bottom a foot or two in from the sides helps keep everything in place too, plus there are less ties to tie and there is still plenty of room to fit it over the duvet. I usually do this by hemming the bottom, then sewing it closed near the sides with the same seams that I sew my ties on with.
- If you’re lazy like me, use narrow twill tape instead of making ties. I prefer ties just because once I had duvet cover buttons that would not stay done up. For this project, it looked better than the grosgrain and satin ribbons I had on hand and saved lotsa time.
If you’ve got duvet cover sewing tips too, please add them in the comments!