Saturday, December 17, 2011

DIY Ruffled Duvet Cover

I saw this duvet cover:

from urban outfitters. I fell in love!! I can't resist anything with ruffles (soon to come, pictures of my ruffle Christmas tree skirt!) The downside of this amazing duvet...it's 200 dollars.

So I got inspired.

 I can sew, I can do a basting stitch, I convinced myself, I can do ruffles!

So a quick run to Goodwill:

Cotton Jersey Fabric (I didn't end up using, but still apart of my 30$) 2.99
Full Size White Flat Sheet 2.99
Full Size White Flat Sheet (this one is a little thicker, I used it for the "bottom" side 3.99
Total Spent on fabric 9.97

I happen to have another white flat sheet at home (I have a whole collection of flat sheets, I can't sleep with them, they end up on the floor or the bottom of the bed)
And I bought a new SHARP pair of fabric scissors

Run to Walmart:
Fabric Scissors 4.99

Overall total: 14.96

Okay, I just need to put a small disclaimer. If this is your first time using a sewing machine/taking on a big craft, just stop now. I have the patience of a saint when it comes to crafts, but this one is intense. 

But oh so worth it :)!

Alright, here we go.
I started at about 3pm in case you need a time line.

Start by laying your "Ruffle" sheet out on the ground (keep in mind, if you want to ruffle the entire duvet cover, you will need a larger sheet than your "shell")

For example: I knew I wanted to ruffle only part of mine, so I had a Full flat sheet for my duvet, and another Full flat sheet to cut in strips for my ruffles.

If you wanted a fully ruffled duvet, you would need at least 2 King size flat sheets for a Full size duvet.


Decide what width you would like your ruffles to be. I decided on 7inches. I started with the fabric tape measure, but quickly found it was extremely obnoxious to move and flatten and so I came up with a different technique


Say hello to my perfectly 7 inch wide book of cards! After about 2 minutes, I scrapped the tape measure and used this baby to measure the strips. I was marking with a yellow permanant marker, which, if I were to do this again, I would go for the watermark fabric pen...I was just too lazy to find mine. Snipping off visible yellow splotches from the marker made me regret being lazy in the first place!


Marking...stilll marking. I made rows with the 7 inch width dot every couple inches so I had something to cut along when I cut the strips


Okay, now onto actually cutting the fabric. This is my super attractive cutting stance. If you could pull the fabric taught enough, your super sharp fabric scissors would glide and make strip cutting much easier!! PS. I have never wished for wood floors so much in my life, for this part, a rolling fabric cutter would work wonders, but they don't work on carpet!!!

Tallie, my bunny, stopped by every once and a while to make sure I was staying on task ;)!


At this point,  I had my piles of strips and I ran them through my sewing machine at 7/8ths, with a basting stitch. My machine is an ancient metal Kenmore, I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it doesn't have a basting stitch setting. Easy fix! Since basting is an imperfect science, you can pull your fabric through your machine faster than the feed teeth are pulling it...wahlah! Basting stitch for machines from the Mesozoic era:)

I took a few strips. ruffled them, and pinned them to my top sheet.

I don't have any advice to make this any less tedious, but what I did was basted all my strips, pinned them all, and then sewed them all.

If i did it again, I would sew between pinning I think...the pins tend to be a little finnicky with ruffles


More pinning...


sideways Tallie came to check out my handywork


I took a break for dinner, then started the tedious sewing! This was the last picture of the "assembly" that I took My unmakeup-ed self is somewhere in there amist the pile of ruffles ;)



the worst picture of me ever!

At this time, it was about 7pm.

Sewing the ruffles onto the top sheet was by far the hardest step. My pins kept falling out and there were a few ruffles I had to seam rip to re-do. I almost scrapped the whole project during this step!

After all the ruffles were sewn onto the top sheet. I sewed another sheet on top of it, stay with me here...Place a sheet over your top side (with the ruffles) and sew around 3 edges (only 3!!!) then, add your blanket/comforter, I used my white down comforter and either sew shut or add buttons. I think I will just sew mine shut.


So perseverance has its rewards!


Tallie Checking our the new bedding!

I did a ruffle rectangle in the middle of the duvet, I like the amount of ruffles, and definitely would not want to sew another single ruffle!

My total was actually 14.96, but I made this before it was all added up! We'll count the extra money as gas money ;)

Finish time: 8:56

Less than 30 dollars, done in less than a day! Enjoy!








8 comments:

  1. Hi! I love your comforter, SO CUTE! :) I'm in the process of making one myself but I'm just putting ruffles around the edges. Wanted to add that I cut down the time it takes to make it by making a small cut on my sheet at the end and just ripped the sheet. It rips even all way down (of course id suggest trying this one one strip to make sure before making all your cuts) was so excited that i wouldn't have to cut and measure all the way down the whole length. especially since i have a king size bed! :) Love your blog, thanks for posting!

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  2. I'm going to try to do this for my queen size bed. I also have a bunneh, and she's very curious about my DIY projects!

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  3. I'm going to do this for my daughter room! Thanks for sharing.

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  4. If I did this using white sheets, but wanted to dye them gray..would you recommend dying them before or after sewing all the ruffles??

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    1. I would DEFINITELY recommend dying them first. From (horrible, awful) experience, you want to make sure the color turns out before you do 8 hours of sewing! I did a white quilt I planned on dying and it came out splotchy with bleach looking spots! Ruined! So dye before, sew after :) Happy DIY'ing!

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  6. Great post with complete information and presentation love the idea you write about your post. I would love to write the post like this on Duvet Cover

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  7. Looking great. I really admire your tutorial about luxurious duvet cover and curtains. Great post we always agree with you.

    ReplyDelete