Making A Duvet Cover

This is one of my first posts from the old 20th Century Homekeeper website. Hope you enjoy it.

Materials Needed:

Two Flat sheets of matching of contrasting colors or patterns.
Sewing Thread
Button Hole Thread
Needle
Scissors
Your Comforter or Duvet

If your comforter is a full size one, you will need queen sized sheets. If your comforter is Queen sized, you will probably want to use King size sheets, although you will have a considerable amount of fabric left over. Use this fabric in other projects or to make the ties for your cover. If your comforter is for Full or Queen sized beds, consider it a Queen size comforter.

You will have when finished, a cover that is a bit larger than your comforter. Just remember to center the comforter, and when it comes time to Tack it, tack it as it is centered. Don’t try to put the corners of the comforter in the corners of the cover.

Wash and dry your sheets before beginning. You will be happier with your results if they are laundered and relatively wrinkle free before you start sewing.

Lay one sheet right side UP on the floor. Place your comforter on top of the sheet. Center the comforter as well as possible on the sheet. If you are using a king size sheet, center the comforter toward the top of the sheet and cut excess from the bottom of the sheet.

Next, place the other sheet on top of the comforter right side DOWN. Pin the edges of the sheets together, don’t pin the comforter. The right sides should be facing in toward each other with the comforter between them.

Remove the comforter from the “sack” you have made and sew the edges of the sack all the way around three edges. Don’t sew the top of the sheets together, this is where you will insert the comforter. Sew the three edges again to make a strong seam. Clip the corners flat, all the way to the seam.

Turn the cover right side out now and press the seams with a hot iron and a bit of water sprayed on, or use a steam iron.

There are several ways to fasten the top of the cover. You can sew button holes to one sheet and buttons to the other sheet. Then they can be buttoned directly together.

Another way to fasten them together is to sew on ties that you make out of extra fabric. Make the ties about 10 inches long and 2 inches wide. To do this you will want to cut a piece of fabric that is about 10 1/2 inches long and 4 1/2 inches wide. Fold the fabric right sides together, and stitch one short end and the long end closed.

Turn the fabric right side out. You have a little tube. Stitch the remaining short end closed. Make at least 10-12 of these so you can have 5-6 two-piece ties at the top of your comforter. Sew the ties opposite of one another along the top of the cover.

Next you have to fashion a way to hold the comforter in place inside the cover. If you don’t, and you use the comforter and cover alot, the comforter will shift around in the cover.

Again, there are many ways to do this, and you may have an idea of your own. You could sew buttons to the comforter and sew button holes in the cover. You could use heavy duty Velcro fasteners and sew the hooks to the cover, the rings to the comforter. But I don’t want to sew stuff to my feather comforter so I Tack it to the cover.

After I have sewn the seams, pressed them, and sewn the top fasteners the way I want them, I place the comforter in the cover and lay it on the floor. Then I arrange the comforter inside the cover just the way I want it to lay. Next, I take Button Hole Thread and needle and push the needle through the top of the cover, through the comforter, AT THE CORNER OF THE COMFORTER. Then from the underside of the comforter cover, I move over about 1 inch and pull the thread up through the cover and comforter to the topside. Once through the top, I tie the thread in a double knot and trim the remaining thread to about 2 inches.

I do this at all 4 corners of the comforter and 2 times on each side of the comforter and cover. This helps keep the comforter stationary inside the cover and does not damage the comforter.

Additional tacks can be made on the inside area of the cover and comforter. The heavier your comforter is, the more tacks it will take to hold it in place inside your new cover.

Your new comforter will protect your comforter from stains, spills and some odors. This is a great way to save wear and tear on your feather comforters.

If you make a comforter cover with these directions, I would like to know how it turned out. These directions are as old as the hills! They have been passed down through my family for many years along with other homekeeping wisdom. I hope they are helpful to you!

Sewing Day ~ Three Tiered Skirt

I made a three -tiered skirt for Lydia today. I followed the directions here at CHK for Home-styled Tiered Skirts, that Wardeh wrote. I only altered the instructions for the elastic waistband a little. I stretched the elastic out and cut it at the waist measurement plus one inch.

I have to tell you that these instructions are the very best I have ever found on the internet. They are basically the same as all the other instructions, but Wardeh has a way of explaining them that far surpasses all the other available instructions.

Here is a picture of the Lydia wearing the skirt after it was finished.  It took about 1 1/2 hours to finish it from cutting to final press.

The next three pictures are the fabric in various stages of finish.

First are the three pieces of fabric I cut and sewed each together, pressing the seams.

Next is a picture of me gathering and pinning the third tier to the second tier.

And finally, here is a picture of the finished skirt.

Lydia loves her new skirt!  You should try to make some for you or your daughters or other girls in your life.

Make a Short-Sleeved Shirt From A Long-Sleeved Shirt

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So my son had a tear in a perfectly good long-sleeved shirt.  Its a very nice shirt, so he asked me to repair the tear. But its one of those repairs that is hard to pull off without threads and stitches showing.  Since the weather was warmer when this occured, I decided to cut off the sleeves and make it a short sleeved shirt.

This is a basic sewing skill that anyone can master.

First I pressed the shirt so that I could see both sleeves and the tear.  Next, I lined up the sleeves, cuff to cuff and underarm seam to underarm seam.

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Cuffs lined up….

Then I decided where I would cut the sleeves.  I made sure to leave enough sleeve on the shirt to have a nice wide hem.  The tear was too close to the shoulder to have as wide a hem as I would have liked, but I left about1 1/2 inches. I measured the length from the cuff to the cut line and made marks on the sleeve with a pencil so that I would cut each sleeve the same length.

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Cutting the sleeve…..

Once it was cut, I pressed under 1/4 inch all around each sleeve.  You could stitch this in place bbut if you are pressing it, it will hold and you don’t really need to stitch it. This turned up area just gives your work a finished look and keeps the raw edges of the fabric from showing when you turn up the hem.

Then I pressed under a 1 inch hem and stitched it. You could stitch a hem like this by hand or on a sewing machine. I used a blind hand stitch.

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Hemming A Formal Gown

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I have started an article about hemming a formal gown over at the Christian Homekeeper Blog.  Come on over and check it out!