I love our down comforter.  Okay it’s not real down, it’s a much less expensive version but I still love it.  It’s been ripped, lost some filling and repaired.  It’s now more of an almost crispy, orange/yellow because I did not know about that whole bleach/well water laundry thing when we first moved here.  It’s seen some things.  Lately I’ve thought about replacing it.  I started thinking maybe it was time to get a new one after the last husky related rippage.  It was a fairly large, jagged tear that made it look like it was snowing in the bedroom when I went to go to bed and fluffed the blankets.  This was the second tear in as many weeks.  Also the most dramatic tear which left me wondering if I could even fix it.

I’ve tried duvet covers.  The comforter always made it’s way down to our feet or off to one side or in a corner.  Perhaps I could have solved this by adding ties to our comforter and then adding more ties to the cover.  I even thought about just buying a new insert that had ties and then buying a cover that had matching ties! There has to be a better way.

A Norwegian Forest cat, two strays and husky walk into a bedroom.  Sounds like it should be the start of a joke.

Here we see three of the four problems.  The black blob is a Norwegian Forest cat with extremely long black hair.  A black and white semi long haired cat and the husky which is basically a walking hair ball with eyes.  The fourth, a shorter haired black cat who regularly goes bald every spring, is probably off contemplating the best place to disgorge a hairball.  You might be thinking well just keep them off the bed, problem/solution.  I have never been a pets on the bed person but they have broken me.

I have three main issues with sharing a bed with them.  The hair they leave behind, the dirt (Tas plays in the woods no matter the weather and the woods come in on him), and the tears.   I have tried buying duvets to protect the comforter they just end up being a new problem.  I’ve bought blankets to pull over the comforter so that it stays clean and hair free.  The husky pulls blankets down when he gets in bed.  He also regularly tears the comforter while rearranging the bedding.  It isn’t malicious.  It starts accidently and then it gets out of control.  We had not realized he was taking his go away biscuit and going away to our bed, where he  would hide it.  Later when retrieving that biscuit, which he had buried in bedding he would end up chewing the bedding.  There have also been some toy in bed related issues.  In his defense it is pretty hard to distinguish Lambie from comforter.

I generally don’t figure out it’s ripped until we go to get into bed and find feathers and stuffing.  I have been sewing up the tears and moving on.  So why not just shut the door?  That used to work when it was just our two cats.  Tas does not like being denied access to the G’s.  Sam tried putting him in his kennel, once.  Tas, in true husky fashion, voiced the pain of his people until he figured how to get out of the cage.  Initially Tas was not on board with the cats are friends not food idea.  Keeping team cat and team dog separated was important.  We also knew that Sam would be leaving for boot camp and Sam is Tas’s person, his sole reason for living.  We had to convince Tas that we were trustworthy and pet safe and part of that was breaking our own rules regarding pets on the bed.  Once Pandora’s box was open Leo marched in and claimed access.  Leo had once owned a pit bull/boxer and he has no problems dealing with a husky.  I would like to say that we had something to do with Tas now being cat friendly but it was Leo.  Leo demanded that Tas like him, not unalive him.

Because we now have peace, we allow the bed rule to be broken.  Peace always has a cost.

First problem was the hair.  Are their fabrics other than pleather, leather, vinyl etc.. that do not hold animal hair?  This is what google says:

“The best pet hair-resistant fabrics include microfiber, leather, tightly woven cotton, and performance fabrics. These materials have smooth surfaces and tight weaves that prevent pet hair from clinging or embedding deeply.”

I did get a microfiber cover for our leather couch and it does release hair, sort of.  Yes, I covered the leather because Leo decided that the arms of our couch made perfect scratching posts.  The cover really did help stop that.   It was  cotton that got my attention.  I have some flat sheets that I had purchased as drapes because I needed the length to go from floor to ceiling.  I’m not using them anymore and they were exactly the same length/width of the comforter, hmmmm.

Queen Flat Sheet only Pack of 6 Bulk (90 x 110 Inches) White Polycotton T-200 Percale Weave – Top Bed Sheet for Home Bedding, Hospital, Massage Table Hotel, Easy Care, Soft Feel

You can find them here.

Now the comforter is for a king size bed but it’s dimensions are the same as these queen size sheets.   Not all queen size are created the same either because when I bought these I bought two other sets that were 81″ x 108″ not 90″ x 110″.

MAKING A DUVET COVER FROM SHEETSThis was the first video I watched and it’s good, she makes some good points and gives some excellent advice and how to’s.  I did not want to do the ties, at least not unless I needed them.  I do absolutely love the idea of being able to make a beautiful cover for different seasons or just to change/update/upgrade/adult the entire look of a bedroom.

This video went over 8 different ways to keep your comforter insert and your duvet cover together.  She talked about the one she liked best which is the one that I ended up using.  Simple plastic snaps.

Snaps and snap tool from Amazon.

I was going to use the links from her video to help her out but the snap tool she linked to was no longer available.  I wanted to make sure my snaps and tool worked together so I bought a set.   You can buy the snaps in all different colors and now that I have tested this and like it I will probably buy snaps to match the fabric I’m using.

In her video she put the snaps on the insert in the corners.  I decided in my test to not do that.  I put the snaps only on the duvet cover.  Prior to getting the snaps, the duvet cover had been on the bed and in that time the comforter did not move around much inside the duvet.  Based on that I decided to not put the snaps on the insert itself.  Reason being if I change out the duvet covers I don’t have to worry about matching the duvet snap location to the comforter insert snap.  My confidence in four snaps, one in each corner, being able to stay snapped and keep things together was low, at least for us.  I also did not want to worry about doing some kind of buttons, zipper, ties, velcro closure on the open end of the duvet cover.  We have had the duvet on for several months so far so good.  I did notice yesterday that the insert had moved down a little bit inside the cover but not much.  If this becomes an issue I will have to put the ties on.

The snaps were easy to do.  I did discover that in some materials it was hard to find the hole you created with the punch tool.  You can damage the snaps with the tool if you do not have it seated correctly.  You have to press hard enough to pinch down the center pin in the head or you can’t close the snap.  They are kind of cheap and how long they will last or how much wear and tear they can handle is yet to be seen.  The tool that came with this set feels cheap but the whole set was under $20 so I have no complaints.  I’m not really sure these would work in really thick fabric like trying to go through the comforter which is why I think I would add ties if there is to much movement.

It is difficult to find material in sizes large enough to cover a king sized bed this is the reason I used sheets.  Try to find flat sheets the same size as your comforter.   You can cut the flat sheet to match your comforter and that totally works.  If the flat sheet is the same size as your comforter all you need to do is a narrow hem on three sides.  I left most of the fourth side open and closed it with the snaps.  I also put that open side, by accident, on the side of the bed not at the foot or head end.  I don’t know if that is making any difference in why the insert doesn’t move around a lot but figured I would put that out there just in case it has helped.

Right after I put the cover on I realized that just tossing another spare flat sheet over it was a good idea.  That way at night we just take that extra top sheet off that leaves a totally clean, hair free duvet.  Because I have many spare sheets it’s easy to swap them out to wash them.  That sacrificial top sheet got ripped two days after it went on but the rest of the bedding was fine!   If I decide to swap out duvet’s seasonally I will probably get either a matching spare flat sheet or a complementary colored flat sheet.

The other day I discovered that the new comforter cover was ripped.  A long jagged tear.  Had the cover not been on, it would have been the comforter that got ripped.    The duvet cover did it’s job.

One HUGE thing I learned in the process of doing this was a simple way to get a comforter inside a duvet cover.  Turn the cover inside out, lay the insert on it, then hold the corners of the duvet cover and comforter and pull it all inside out.  Watch the videos and that will all make sense.

Also if you have a box spring that you can see and you don’t want to use a bed skirt just use a fitted sheet on the box spring.  I matched mine to the color of the wood frame but you could easily switch these out to go with your bedding, the season, wall color whatever your heart desires.