apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It looks so complicated but it's so easy. I have to try it.

That's funny, I was just wondering if it would be easy or hard to recreate that West Elm pin-tucked organic cotton duvet cover. Maybe a pillow trial is in order to see.

why does martha stewarts' bio on her website say nothing about her being in the big house? that's got to be a formative experience.

or stewart's even...?

I don't see the point of that. It makes the pillow uncomfortable.

I make pillows like these using a lattice smocking technique on modern graphic fabrics - in fact they're getting published in a craft book next year!

It's an easy, but time consuming technique, and there are many smocking and pin tucking variations.

You can check them out on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/redjetwhistle/2841498628/in/set-72157610155008669/

ooh i like those redjet, though I don't think i'm quite up to that yet. I would like to know where I can buy covers for throws alone other than Pottery/West Elm/Restoration. Any suggestions?

With Lisa. These will give you serious couch-face. I do use mine, if only occasionally, and the small beaded strip is a problem already.

Am I the only one who came from a firm, "no laying on the sofa" house? A recline is passable, feet up is encouraged, but face down laying was a no-no. "Go to bed!"
My grandmother got rid of the only sofa in their house because my grandfather would lie on it too much. He moved onto the back porch swing. Now he's got wood slats on his face.
Fast forward a few years and she got rid of the loveseat too. She watched an episode of Oprah or something that talked about off-gassing and then said that her ancient tapestry and down love seat was definitely making her sleepy and want to lie down.

Occasionally there is someone facedown on my couch.

I'm currently (as in right this minute while browsing online and listening to This American Life) making a duvet cover like this out of two flat sheets. I'd ordered the West Elm pintuck duvet cover (despite its cost) but when it kept getting delayed in shipping, I canceled the order and decided just to make one.

I googled quite a bit trying to find tips and ideas on how to best do it and I did find the Martha Stewart stuff, but I found it easiest to make up my own.

Advice:
1. For a fullsize duvet cover, I'm using a queen flat sheet. I think a king wouldn't be out of line, depending on spacing/sizing.
2. You've got to figure out where you want your tucks. If you want them to be roughly squares, then you cannot just grid out squares because your gathering of fabric will shorten one side. Lots of weird fabric math where you're trying to figure out not just numbers, but how the numbers affect how the fabric will look.
3. I've ended up with two overlapping grids of 4"x4.5". I'm gathering between 3/4" and 1" per tuck, with three stitches each. A tuck doesn't entirely get rid of the fabric, hence the .5" extra in my square and the larger amount of fabric being gathered. I go through each stitch once, knot the thread, and then go through each again and knot twice. I should end up doing a total of 880 tucks.
4. I'm using a fabric marking pencil to make my grid. I'm not doing it all at once because with handling, the lines become difficult to see. I make sure to leave at least one line between what I'm working on and what I need to grid to measure from (since the fabric doesn't lay flat once it's tucked).

I'll take pictures of it in progress and with some explanation tomorrow, if people are interested.

Pin tucking is a fantastic way to learn how to do this. You need to make sure your sham is a size or two too big, then add "pleats" down the middle using a pin to hold them in place till you can tack them down with a needle and thread... then iron into place :)

happify -

please post your progress and come more detail!

happify —

I agree, post more!

Okay, I uploaded (poor) pictures with instructions here: http://flickr.com/photos/happify in the "home" set.

Feel free to ask any questions or make suggestions. I'm really enjoying the process so far (except for the bit where I want to have it done already and it isn't but the actual working on it isn't unpleasant).

Thank you for this!!

Emily

holy crap, happify - i have been thinking about doing this since september! can you send/post more information on the math necessary to accomplish this? i have a queen sized bed; i just left you a flickr note as well.