DIY Duvet Cover For Your Dorm

Hey y'all. I've been dorm planning ever since I started to our colleges my junior year. I've gone through so many phases of color scheme, preppy, modern, artsy, boho, and so on and so forth, and I've done my share of duvet cover shopping. I've seen a lot of stuff that I liked, but not really much that I drop dead loved. Some  things that caught my eye were:

Both waaaaay outside my price range. If I'm going to pay $100 + for my duvet, why would I want to spend another $100-$200 on its cover. Seems a bit too pricey for my liking. And that's when the light bulb went of in my head. Why not make it on my own, and get the best of both worlds (errr.. duvets)?! So I headed to Pinterest to find some DIY tutorials on duvet cover making. The winning tutorial was from The Sewing Rabbit, which gave me the basic gist of how to sew one, however I was going to make mine look completely different.

Step One: Collect Your Materials

What you will need:

• Two flat white top sheets (x)
• Screen Printing ink (x)
• About 60 skeins of embroidery floss (x)
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Big water color paint brush (x)
• General Sewing Supplies

Step Two: Tassel Time

 

The first thing you want to do is cut a piece of floss into 8 equal sections. (About 5 lengths of the skein did it for me.)

 Then, cut the skein into 4 equal sections.

 Next, take one section of floss and one section of skein and try the floss in a double knot around the middle of the skein.

After that, fold the tassel in half and place another piece of floss under the tassel. Then, tie a double or triple knot.

Finally, tie a know at the top of the tassel and Voila! You have a tassel!

This is one of the most time consuming steps. I tied about 224 tassels at the end of it all.. I suggest inviting a willing friend/family member to sit down and help you. I re-watched a few episodes of Gossip Girl with a friend and in no time all of them were done! I also didn't use all the colors of floss that came in my pack, I decided to leave out the tan/white floss to keep my duvet looking really colorful!

Step Three: Paint your Duvet

So I have in my mind that I want a polka dotted tassel duvet cover. I'm really into big natural messy polka dots, and decided the ones on the collected duvet were a little to small and uniform. I took to the internet to find some inspiration and eventually created this:

Imagining that the entire rectangle is my duvet, this is what I wanted my polka dots to look like. When doing your own research try to find something simple, the less colors the less expensive your materials will be.I only needed to buy one 8 oz. container of screen printing ink. You can really do whatever you want! Use your imagination to create your perfect duvet cover.

I don't have pictures for this step because I originally thought I would be paining both sides, however I only ended up painting the top one, so instead I will give you some tips.

• Wash/Iron your sheet before you paint it. 
• Draw your design on with Pencil before you do anything permanent.
• Use a water color paint brush over a foam pain brush, you get smoother lines.
• Paint on a flat surface were there will be no wind/ foot traffic for at least 48 hours.
• Tape the four corners of your sheet down so it is secured while painting. 
• After 48 hours of drying, iron the places you painted. 
• Wash the fabric after ironing. 
• Hang drying produces better results compared to machine drying.

*Letting the screen printing ink is KEY. I washed mine after about 30 hours there was a little bit of black residue left all over my pure white sheet, so I had to wash it again with a small amount of bleach. However bleach weakens your fabric, so getting it right the first time will be helpful.*

Step Four: Sewing

Now I'm no sewing expert. Once I sewed a pillow case in 7th grade for my culinary arts/ home ec class, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. Luckily, I have a seamstress of a mother who knows how to use a sewing machine like its an extension of her hand. Also, Sewing a duvet was almost the same, if not easier than a pillow case, just a lot bigger.

*If you want a better explanation go to The Sewing Rabbit*

The first thing you're going to want to do is arrange your tassels in a pattern that you will use on your duvet and decided how far apart they will be. I settled on sewing each tassel two inches apart.

Next turn your bottom sheet (mine was plain white) right side up and sew the tassels down in a straight line. I did three sides of tassels,(top, left, right) and skipped the bottom because I bought matching bright colorful buttons to go there.

Then take your top sheet and bottom sheet and place the two sides you want to be on the outside, facing towards each other , and sew them together on the right, top, and left.(Kinda like you would sew a pillow case)

Finally make your button holes on the sheet you want to face up on your bed, and sew your buttons on the bottom sheet facing upward. If you need help sewing on the buttons check out this tutorial.

And your done!

Rosie approves!

 Duvet cover sans duvet.

I'm in love with these buttons.

Now you're ready to make the duvet of your dreams! Thanks for reading, if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment. Don't forget to follow our board on Pinterest!