Project #2- Making a Duvet Functional

I used to think that using a duvet on your bed was a miserable idea. My sister had one, and I remember her complaining about the insert bunching up at the bottom of the bed. I have always just used comforters or coverlets to avoid this, and last winter I made the mistake of buying a truly heinous comforter on a whim. I also have a problem with being whatever the opposite of a hoarder is, so of course I chucked out my last comforter that was actually decent looking. So this winter, I've been rocking my coverlet that I use during the summer. In this awful Utah winter, that pretty much means I've been freezing to death.

When I worked at Crate and Barrel, I learned that not all duvets had to be a nightmare. They have these awesome little ties on the inside that connect the insert to the cover, which makes putting them over the insert as well as making the beds (over.. and over.. and over again) a breeze. Unfortunately, Crate's duvets and inserts are super expensive. Pottery Barn also does the smart-tie system, but again, they are very expensive. Ikea has very reasonably priced inserts and covers, and you can even select the weight of your insert. Unfortunately, they don't have the fancy ties.

My cute mom bought me a gorgeous bedding set from Ikea for Christmas this year, and I made it through two washes of the duvet cover before realizing I couldn't do the bunchy, messy, hard-to-get-in-and-out duvet thing. I decided project #2 would be trying to make my duvet just like the C&B duvets but without the price tag.

I should probably preface this post by saying that I cannot sew. Period. It's not like I'm a little bit bad at it. I SUCK. In fact, in seventh grade I made my friend Emily sew my pillowcase for me when the teacher left the room because my first set of stitches were so jagged I ended up having to pick them all out, ripped the fabric in the mean-time, and had to shorten it to a throw pillow. I mention this because it should give you confidence- if you have a sewing ability better than a 2-year-old, you CAN do this.

So, I started off by taking a t-shirt and cutting the hems off the sleeves and the bottom. I'm sure you could use ribbon, too, but the t-shirt kind of seemed like it would hold up against my rotten sewing better.I also started using white thread, thinking that once I got to the ties on the cover that you would not be able to see my sewing if/when I accidentally sewed away from the seam I was trying to hit.

So, I sewed the t-shirt across my insert corners, making kind of a strap.

Somewhere in the middle of this, my white thread disappeared, and I suspect my pup Wookie had something to do with this. (*Later update, found the thread with Wookie teeth marks all over it, so suspicions were confirmed.) I switched to another thread that was a lot thicker and caused a lot more tangle-ups, but it got the job done.

Please also note my completely crappy stitching ability. I made these little straps on all four of the corners.

Then I got to work on the duvet cover.I tried to stay on the inside seams (I had about half an inch of wiggle-room) so that you couldn't see my ties or the sewing I did to attach the ties from the outside. I pretty much just folded a longer piece of t-shirt in half, and then sewed the middle of the tie to the seam of my duvet cover.

I'll have you know I did this right before a duvet cover washing, and as crappy as it looks, it totally stood the test. 

Once my duvet cover was out of the wash, I attached the corners to each other by tying the ties around the straps. It was super easy to get my duvet cover on, and could shake it out without worrying about holding the corners.

And... voila! cutest, straightest duvet ever. And for about a fourth of the cost of what I would have paid at C&B or Pottery Barn.