DIY Wool Duvet with Organic Wool & Organic Cotton
So in my post about how to avoid toxins in bedding, I said I was going to make my daughter her very own wool duvet, with organic cotton fabric and organic wool batting. I learned the steps from the River Oaks Farm & Studio blog, and I’m ready to report some progress!
We are moving our daughter to a twin-size bed, so I wanted to the duvet to be about 86″ x 68″. I needed to find wide-width organic cotton fabric because of the size of the duvet (otherwise I would need to sew 2 pieces together for each side and it would just be silly to have a seam in the middle of the blanket). I got some sateen for the duvet itself, and then a lovely Harmony Art printed wide-width cotton for the cover. The only source I could find for wide-width organic cotton fabric was Organic Cotton Plus in the US. (If anyone knows of a Canadian source for wide-width organic cotton fabric, please tell me! The shipping from US to Canada is quite a bit.) I also needed to find organic wool batting for this size that would be a good weight, so it’s not too hot and not too cold. I did some digging around the internet and decided that 3lb of wool would be a good weight for the size of the batting I would need. More digging uncovered Bungalow Bear on Etsy who sells organic wool batting – primarily for making dolls – but who had it available in the size and weight I wanted! Woohoo!
So! Here were the steps to make the duvet.
1. I pre-washed my organic cotton fabric to pre-shrink it.
2. Then I ironed it all. It was a lot of ironing!
3. Then I measured and cut the fabric to include seam allowances.
4. Then I measured and cut the wool batting to size.
5. Then I moved all the toys and furniture out of the way in our living room to lay it out. First a piece of the organic cotton, nice and flat. Then the wool batting was laid on top with as few lumps as possible!
6. Next I had to put the other layer of organic cotton on top – without lumps. This laying out process took longer than I anticipated- these are big pieces of fabric!
7. Next I was ready to start tying knots through all 3 layers to make the duvet! I got organic cotton thread to do this of course. I started by tying a knot in the middle of the duvet, then working my way outwards, tying every 6 inches or so. This is to keep the wool batting in place so it doesn’t get all bunchy in one spot. It started to take shape after several knots.
8. Finally I was finished tying knots! This took a good day’s worth of tying (maybe if I’d been a girl guide I would be faster with knot tying).
9. Last step was to finish the edges with the sewing machine. I pinned the edges to get ready to sew, then sewed all around the edges. FINISHED!
It took me about 2 days to get the whole thing done (one solid afternoon and evening of knot tying with my daughter at her grandparents’ house!), but like I said, I’m sure if you were faster at tying knots, it could take less time than that.