I get a lot of questions from readers about how to make a bed. Not the pulling up of sheets and tucking in of corners. But: What should those sheets look like? Should there be a top sheet? A comforter and a blanket? It’s complicated business, sleeping. I’ve gotten notes about husbands that sleep hot. Some men are radiators, apparently, all hot and bothered and sleeping in their own pools of sweat, heaven help us. Then there are stories of people who can’t get warm enough. They have layer upon layer of mismatched comforters and throw blankets and nary a wink of sleep. James and I have been sharing a bed now for almost nine years. But this post isn’t about who hogs more of our double bed (James). Or whether it’s appropriate to draw a line of demarcation down the middle of white sheets (tempting!). It’s about what the heck to put on a bed in the first place. Beds are kind of the ultimate example in matters of personal preference. And I think a lot of that comes down to what you’re used to.

I grew up in a house where we made our beds with hospital corners. During the long New England winters, we layered wool blankets underneath comforters or quilts and over top sheets and tucked them all in neatly, folding crisp triangles of sheets and blankets at the ends of the bed and shoving them under the mattress. We didn’t hop into bed, so much as tuck ourselves in like letters working their way into an envelope. In the summertime, I mostly remember sleeping on top of the quilt—too hot to deal with sliding between the sheets or taking off the quilt and finding a place to stash it. But on the hottest nights, the sheets were wrested from their tucked-in corners and our parents would come into our rooms and give us wind baths. If you don’t know, a wind bath consists of laying perfectly still in bed, while someone else raises and lowers the top sheet over you, making a glorious breeze. After a few snaps of the sheets, my parents would let go, letting the sheet settle softly over our skinned and mosquito bitten knees. 

If you ask me, a wind bath is the best arugment for having a top sheet that there is. Matters of top sheets and hospital corners aside, coming from a woman who just replaced a couch with a cot, it won’t come as any surprise that I like my bedding to be relatively spare. (Though don’t think for a minute that I’d complain about a more comfortable mattress.) In the pursuit of simple bedding, this is what has worked for us: – Two sets of white sheets.  For us, the classic American combination of top and bottom sheet means that we don’t have to launder a duvet cover, or store a large down blanket in the winter months when it’d be too hot in here to use one. In the summertime without A/C, a white top sheet still looks relatively neat, even without a blanket to complete the ensemble. Having two sets of sheets keeps the bed clothed even after we take our weekly haul to the laundromat. And they’re white because I decided that slight yellowing beats fading. – A thick cotton blanket for 3/4 of the year.

In New York City apartments with steam radiators, our cotton blanket has been thick enough to get us through almost the whole winter, with the exception of a night or two when we’ve added on a throw blanket for a little extra warmth. In the summertime without air conditioning, we go blanketless entirely. It’s just us in our white sheets in our white room and if it wasn’t for our blackberry-colored headboard and the crib at the foot of our bed, we might wake up thinking we were in a cloud. Used Washer And Dryer Fair Price– A few sets of extra pillowcases (one could develop quite a hobby of finding beautiful vintage varieties, I’ll warn you) means that in a week when we forget to change the sheets, we at least have clean pillowcases. Indoor Outdoor Furniture Toronto– A white bed skirt hides our boxspring, and the few things we keep underneath it. Gym Floor Mats Online

– Throw pillows have been relegated to the “couch,” leaving only the pillows we sleep on, plus one, each for bolstering on the bed. (And yes, I have been trying out a buckwheat pillow lately. Though I admit I’m still in the learning curve stage.) I’m not opposed to a duvet on principle. In fact, I really love the look of a pillowy white duvet cover on a down blanket. And what a thrill to just pull the duvet up and have the bed made in one pass. You might very well see duvet on our bed one day, but for now, we’re all cotton blanket and sheet sets. What about you guys? Mountain of throw pillows? In case you’re hungry for more bedtime stories: More thoughts on making the bed. More thoughts on white sheets. In case you’re curious: These are our favorite sheets. This is our ticking stripe blanket. This is the mattress of my dreams (just in case anyone wanted to get me a really nice present). These are buckwheat pillows. Tiny apartment survival tips #1 – #120, right here.

First we showed you How to Sew A Duvet Cover and gave you measurements for all different sizes.  Well, Scarlet outgrow the crib size duvet I made, so it was time for a twin. How much fabric do you need to sew a twin duvet cover? This question is so hard to find an answer to out there on the Internets – so much conflicting info. So, I was left to my own devices to figure it out, and because I love you, I will tell you how much fabric you need to sew a twin duvet cover, and how I pieced it together to get the most of my yardage. Check out How to Sew a Twin Duvet Cover after the jump… How to Sew A Twin Duvet Cover For this duvet cover, I used some beautiful (girly but modern!) fabric: Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush (Home Decor Weight) Bubble Burst in Berry. I ordered this twin comforter which was the least expensive decent one I could find on amazon.  It’s a standard size of 66″x86″. Many twin comforters will vary from that by an inch or two (or more), so just measure yours first and account for an difference when cutting your fabric.

So, how much fabric do you need to sew a twin duvet comforter?  You need 7.5 yards of 54″ wide fabric.  Home decor weight fabric is 54″ wide.  Let me tell you how I came to this in a very confusing manner, then show you a diagram so it all makes sense (hopefully). Now, you could create two flat panels for either side of the duvet by piecing your fabric together, but I wanted to use as little as possible of my fancy fabric to get the most out of it.  To do that, I started by cutting the entire width of my fabric (this is home decor fabric so it is 54″ wide) to the length I needed it, which is the length of the duvet plus 4 inches.  So 86″ + 4″= 90″ long, which is 2.5 yards.  So cut that, and you have 2 panels 54″ wide and 2.5 yards long.  Thats a total of 5 yards used so far. Now we need to increase the width from 54″ to 66″ on both panels, plus seam allowances.  We don’t want a seam on only one side of our duvet – that would look unbalanced, we need to have the seams on both sides of our center panels we just cut.  

So we could cut four strips – two for the top and two for the bottom, then create two flat panels, but that would be lots of extra work.  Instead, I decided to cut only two strips that would wrap around the sides of the duvet, attaching to the front and back panel.  Here is how I figured it: 54″-2″ for seam allowances = 52″ is what we have on each panel so far. 66″ + 2″ for the thickness of the comforter = 68″ is what we want on each side 68″-52″=14″ is what we need on either side of each panel. 14″ + 4″ for seam allowances = 18″ panels. We already know our length is 2.5 yards.  So cut 2 strips 2.5 yards long by 18″ wide.  You will have an additional piece of fabric 18″ wide X 2.5 yards leftover to make pillows, ruffles, or other accents with. So start with one of your 54″X2.5 yard panels. Along the 2.5 yard side, sew one of your 18″X2.5 yard strips to it using a 1″ seam allowance (it’s that large because I used a french seam).

Then sew the other 18″ strip to the other side of the 54″ panel. Now grab your other 54″ wide X 2.5 yard panel.  Sew it to one of the side panels along the 90″ side. Now bring the two unfinished 90″ edges together and sew the seam, creating a tube. Now we want to center the two 54″ wide panels by folding the side panels in half, so they go from 16″ to 8″ with a fold.   Now with your duvet inside out, sew the top side closed and finish the edge by serging, sewing with a ziz zag stitch, or cutting with pinking shears. Now I wish I had taken pictures of this but I didn’t so bear with me.  You can also head over to our original duvet cover tutorial here, and look at the pics from step 3.  But what you want to do on the bottom of the duvet is fold the entire seam under 1/4″ and iron and sew in place.  Now fold it in another 2″ and iron.  Lay it flat and sew from the corner 17″ in and back stitch.  Repeat on the other corner.  Attach your snaps or velcro to the inside flap you just created.