I’m not alone that many of my sewing makes end up being dictated around my family and their needs and desires, well ok – mostly Baby Plush and the things she needs (I really should stop calling her Baby Plush as she’s almost three now, I’ll have to think of another descriptive, but anonymous name for her soon). All of a sudden she seemed to have outgrown her sleeping bag overnight and was was about to burst out of the bottom of it. I was prepared for such a day with a duvet and pillow, but hadn’t managed to get a duvet cover and I decided I needed one quick smart! I was going to buy a shop bought one as I needed it so quickly but after scouring the possibilities of shop bought versions I just couldn’t find anything that was nice and would go in her non-pink room, or that wasn’t a polycotton when I really wanted 100% cotton. So time against me, I decided to run over to the warehouse one Sunday afternoon and get some fabric and knocked this up. It was super easy and gave me an excuse to use Gnomeville again which has to be one of my all time favourite fabrics.

Gnomeville from Michael Miller – just look at those cute little fellas!

If you are thinking of making one of these you’ll need to do a bit of easy piecing because 110cm width isn’t enough fabric (in this case you need extra on the “height” as Gnomeville is a border print).  I used Michael Miller’s Red Quarter Dot which matches the dots on Gnomeville exactly and there was enough Quarter Dot fabric left over to make the pillow case.  I used this extra wide backing fabric from Wilmington for the reverse so I didn’t have to have a join on the back. You could use buttons to fasten it but if you’re lazy like me KAM snaps  are the way forward. The size 16s are perfect for duvets as they keep snapped but aren’t too hard to undo when you’re in a hurry on laundry day.

Size 16 KAM snaps in action

Of course there’s a wash one, wear one scenario with bedding so I had to make two in the end. For the second one I decided to use one of the Riley Blake Extra Wide fabrics. These puppies are a whopping 274cm wide are used for backing quilts  but I used 1.25m (the duvet is 150cm x 120cm), folded over the top and pieced a bit of quilt cotton at the lower border and used the remainder of the contrast print as the pillow case so this one is just two pieces of fabric – easy peasy! Alas we don’t have this ladybird fabric anymore but if you want to hunt it out it’s a Robert Kaufman Picnic Party  print. 

Unfortunately she seems to almost be growing out of the cot bed all of a sudden so we’ll be upgrading to her first proper bed soon enough (where is the time going?!) I doubt I’ll get away with something non-pink and non princessy for the next redecoration. Why is it that little girls love pink so much? She certainly didn’t get it from me. Have you made any of your own bedding? Is it something you’d consider?