Sunday, May 13, 2012

Useful is the new glamorous

In my sewing dream world, I make clothes. I make clothes for me and they all fit well and make me look effortlessly stylish. In this fantasy life whenever I wear something that perfectly suits me, of course, I have made it because if it were purchased at Target it would not fit so well or be that perfect shade of plumeuse (yes, I did just make a smoosh name of my two favorite colors).

But in this life, my real life, sewing is most often utilitarian. But this is not disappointing to me -- sewing for utility is a great thing. It makes me feel self-sufficient, it prolongs the life of useful objects, it saves money, and is fulfilling, if not as glamorous as making my whole wardrobe. With that said, it is gratifying to present you with my long-awaited duvet cover. For you this wait has been mere seconds, but for me it has been so long since I started this project that I can only guess that it has been five or six years. To say that it has been longer would be too shameful.

Back in the last decade, we bought a nice duvet for the cold winters in our old apartment. I have a terrible allergy to down, so we purchased a synthetic one that is truly as warm as down. I insisted that we did not need to spend the extra money on a cover and that I would make one. I started out strong by quickly purchasing some bedding on clearance to repurpose into a duvet. I measured it out, sewed a border on what would be the underside to make the two sides the same size, and then I abandoned it. I folded up the ten or so yards of fabric and shoved them in with the rest of my fabric. Case closed.

A couple of weeks ago I moved something in my sewing room and uncovered this unfinished cover. All these years our duvet has been exposed and really not that appealing. I still liked the main fabric for the cover, maybe even more as the yellow and green fit with the fabric I have to make curtains for our bedroom. I set to work and after a few nights and a couple of afternoons our bed is looking better (I will do something about those pillow shams eventually).

The last time I had a duvet cover made like this (back when I would get my mom to do sewing projects) one of the things that drove me crazy was that the duvet would slide down inside the cover. This time I bought some snap tape and sewed two snaps at five places inside along the top seam. I matched those places up and sewed the other side of the snap tape to the comforter. So far no slipping duvet! My seams might not match, but I do think I am already improving a bit.

2 comments:

  1. So how many points does that make?

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  2. Hi Nicole! Been listening to Stash and burn for years now and just bought a sewing machine, so I'm really happy about this new blog.

    Lookinf forward to more posts!

    ReplyDelete