Fixing A Fussy Duvet

The IKEA duvet cover I bought a few years ago is admittedly not high quality. It’s cute though; white, with a pleated detailing across the top that takes it just a notch above total snooze-fest. Although ironically, its purpose is mostly for snooze-fest. The comforter should really be the star of the show (an exceptional king-size down find on Overstock shortly after I bought the house that has held up phenomenally for 2.5 years) but it’s really not; it’s all about duvet functionality right now.

Last you saw it reveling in my bedroom it was un-stuffed, left alone without the comforter insert (the next photo is from this post about that awesome stained wall and the lobsta’ tables). I left it like that all summer to serve as a solo coverlet on hot nights; just enough with the top sheet to keep a girl warm when there was a breeze, and light and small enough to shove into the corner and not have it take up an ungodly amount of space on the hottest of nights. I’ve mentioned I don’t have AC, right?

But just last week with the cooler weather, I brought the comforter back out, ready to wrap myself up like a taco (precisely the reason why I bought the largest, smushiest down blanket I could find).

But you see, a low quality duvet like this IKEA gem lacks things that other high-quality duvets come standard with. I think, at least. I’ve never owned a high-quality duvet either, but I don’t see many people griping about keeping their comforter insert correctly positioned within the duvet cover.

The IKEA duvet and down comforter combo did strange things; like not hold the comforter into the corners of the cover. And not have a zipper or tie to keep the comforter from, you know, falling out of the end of the cover slowly every night. None of this seemed like a hard fix, and I was dead-set on making the duvet-comforter combo the best it could be.

First things first: Corners.

To connect the corners of the comforter to the inside corners of the duvet, I decided to custom-make some ties out of a nylon rope I had laying around; I considered ribbons, t-shirt strips, and buying some new fabric to cut, but this was free, on-hand, and was strong. Oh, and couldn’t be seen through the white duvet, which wasn’t the case for the colored ribbons.

I cut the rope into 9″-10″ pieces. It doesn’t lay straight because it had been coiled up tightly. Not a game changer, just looks funky.

And because I wanted to avoid fraying, I dipped each piece into a candle flame to seal the ends.

Once I had cured all of the 9″-10″ pieces of rope, I folded each piece in half and carefully sewed the folded end to each corner of the comforter (knowing full well that if I ever decided to go without a duvet, they’ll be like fun little corner tassels, ha).

Sewing over the folded end felt like it would add strength to the stitching; the sewing machine had two pieces of rope to bite onto, and even if one piece of rope loosened, it would still be held taut in place by the other half of the rope. Little course in ropes management, that’s what you just had.

I did the same on each of the inside four corners of the duvet, folding each piece of rope in half and carefully sewing the folded end to each corner (white rope, white thread, all purposeful to minimize being able to see it through the duvet).

The four ends (remember: two ropes folded) were knotted together simply, and seemed to hold much better than a bow considering the slipperiness of the nylon rope. Strong, yet still easy to pull apart for cleaning.

From here forward, thy comforter shall not leave thy corner of the duvet. Hallelujah.

Except there was one other thing to tackle.

You tell me why a company wouldn’t add a closure to a duvet cover with an enormous opening?

It’s fine. I can do that myself. It’s a good thing that some previously bought article of clothing came with an extra two buttons. Clear, you know, to blend right in.

I’d also like a palm reading, por favor.

Instead of traditional ties (which I imagine un-tying every night magically), I opted to make a couple little no-scissors-involved button holes along the opening where the comforter goes into the duvet.

You can kind of see a sneak-peek of those loop holes (also made of white nylon rope) in that photo two above, but here’s a better shot including the clear button in place. Both were sewn into the inside edge of the opening to minimize the chances of being seen.

The finished piece is secure, and doesn’t (yet) appear to be tearing, pulling strangely, or unhooking itself.

The corners are staying put realllly nicely too; it’s nice to sleep and not feel like you’re not fighting comforter corners inside a duvet… while the comforter’s trying to crawl out the end and onto the floor in the middle of the night.

Problem solved.