Quick-and-Easy Duvet Cover

Now that my 4-year-old son is old enough to have an opinion about his bedroom, decorating it has progressed at a much slower pace. How do you make a room look cute and uncluttered when your child has tastes that don’t match your perfect theme? For now, we’ve landed on a mostly-space-and-rockets motif. The toys don’t all match and no one would mistake the room for a Land of Nod photo shoot, but that’s just fine. I did have fun with the rocket sheets from Garnet Hill. They glow in the dark and that makes bedtime a little more magical. But they weren’t cheap, and I wasn’t going to spend an additional $70 for a matching comforter cover. Also, a single-print bed ensemble seemed bland. So I turned to my Mom for inspiration, who once sewed up a lovely comforter cover for me out of two matching  flat sheets. I took the flat sheet from the rocket set and matched it with an inexpensive set from Target in a complementary shade of blue. I find that top sheets in kids’ beds just get kicked to the bottom anyway, and it’s a lot easier to make a bed when all you have to do is rearrange the comforter.

I laid the two top sheets on the floor with the right sides facing each other and pinned them together along the outer edge of three sides, leaving the bottom edge open (see below). The sheets weren’t exactly the same size, but they were close enough, so I didn’t bother to trim and re-seam them. That was a big time-saver. Then I simply got out my sewing machine and some matching thread and sewed up the three pinned sides. Then all I had to do was remove the pins, turn the duvet right-side out and sew some Velcro along the bottom to hold those edges together. Notice that I put the Velcro on the “right” side of each edge (the side facing out). This way, when you press the strips together, the edges of the sheets are tucked in, out of sight. Also notice that the edge of the blue sheet has pleats that look a little funny. No matter, though: That side is always tucked down at the foot of the bed anyway. The whole project took just two hours and my son loved it. Ever notice how much little kids appreciate things made especially for them? I need to enjoy that before he reaches his teens.