the duvet diary: part 1

Yesterday, I finally started work on Sarah's new comforter cover. As you may remember, I got this king sheet set for a steal and planned to cut it up and applique flowers to it to make her a custom duvet.


Because it's so large, I took the comforter and the sheets out into the yard so that I could lay them out to make sure I had enough for the front and back of the duvet from the sheets. The front was no problem, but I hadn't really thought about having odd cutouts on the formerly fitted sheet where I'd trimmed off the elastic and split the corner seams. It was not going to work as easily as I had hoped! No problem though, I just trimmed off both ends where the cutouts were (all the way across) and turned the pieces in the other direction, cutting and lining them up to fit across where I needed them. In the end, I only had a small space to fill and a pillowcase came in to save the day.


I'm almost finished with piecing the back together and I started working on the appliques today. I'm using an iron on product with a paper backing. I just iron it onto my applique piece, cut out my shape, peel the paper off and iron the applique to my fabric. Easy! I got the flowers put together and stitched around the centers, and got the leaves cut out. Next step is to get everything onto the top, which is a little daunting b/c of the size of the sheet I'm working with. I'll iron on the leaves and flowers and then stitch around them. Here's a couple of the flowers...Sarah has changed the design so that they will just be scattered around without stems.


Honestly, I've never owned or even SEEN a duvet in person! haha! I'm just making this up as I go. I know an issue you can have with them is that your comforter gets bunched up inside. I was thinking I could sew some buttons onto the comforter and make button holes on the duvet somewhere so that the comforter becomes attached to the cover, keeping it in place. Any ideas or suggestions are very welcome! I'm just winging it! lol