sheets
August 10th, 2010
All my kids have odd size beds. Our bedrooms are quite small, so to fit all the kids in them we got two extendable beds from Ikea. My son has the leksvik and my daughter has the super cute minnen. They start out about toddler size and then you can make them longer as the children get, well, longer. The baby has a wooden travel crib, sort of like this, that I got off craigslist for next to nothing. He is just about to outgrow it, which sucks because it fits perfectly in the corner of our room.
The Ikea beds are kind of awesome and kind of annoying (that pretty much describes everything at Ikea, doesn’t it?). The only sheets that fit them are of course at Ikea and they are uncharacteristically boring: I think the options were red or blue. This past week I finally got around to making some fitted sheets for everyone. I made them out of vintage sheets I picked up at the thrift store: sheet from sheets–not my most creative moment.
There are a bunch of tutorials out there on how to make fitted sheets, so I won’t bore you with how I did it (though, if there are a lot of you out there with these Ikea beds I could rustle up the measurements I used). Between these sheets and the thousand pairs of elastic waist pants I’ve made, I am done with the whole pushing the safety pin through the casing crap. I know there is a tool out there that makes this bearable, isn’t there? When I find it I’m going to retire my extra large, sad, bent up safety pin.
wait–are you sure those rainbow sheets weren’t MINE from when I was 10 years old–because they look like my sheets! Also, we have an Ikea loft bed for our boy–and agree with the sheets–annoying. What is most annoying though is that we bought our sheets at Ikea and they still do not fit the bed right! But then again, who gives a rip, they’re just sheets…
Oh I love these! My son just sleeps in our bed, but eventually he’ll be on his own and in our teensy tiny house, we’ll have to find a weird sized bed to fit into our strange sized rooms. This is genius!
Here in Sydney Australia I have bought elastic that I think is made for fitted sheets. It is about 2cm wide and the middle few millimetres are not elastic so it folds over. The elastic looks like “normal” elastic. It is then a matter of folding the elastic over the edge and in one go zigzagging both sides to the sheet stretching the elastic as you sew. It is a very neat arrangement. I have only seen this type of elastic in white, but it may well come in other colours
I have also used a similar fold over product which doesn’t look like normal elastic. It looked like satin ribbon that folds over and comes in lovely colours. It is probably made of nylon and spandex. I cut up some old towels for hand towels and bound them with this. This shiny elastic may not be heavy enough for sheets. I’m not sure. It is better for lighter garments such as necklines or cuffs to get a neat finish. eg http://www.craftstylish.com/item/19131/how-to-use-fold-over-elastic
Fold over elastic of both weights is great because it also covers raw edges all in one go.
Search for
fold over elastic
on google to see the options available.
eg http://chinaadopttalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=54260.15
Love using vintage sheets! Lately there have beens tons of pj pants in the works for lots of family. My method of choice is to serge the elastic to the edge(stretch as you go), fold over & sew two straight stitch rows (again, stretching) about 1/4″ apart at the edge for a nice finish. A few people have mentioned zig zag, and it works just as well – especially for sheets where you really don’t need to encase the elastic. Hem the sheet, add skinny elastic inside at the corners with a zig zag stitch and you’re good to go. Nice and quick. And more fun than getting annoyed with casings!
The rainbow pillowcase jumped out at me. I had those sheets as a kid!
Nicola
I, too, had those rainbow sheets as a child. I should rescue them from my mom’s linen closet. And you can buy fold-over-elastic or FOE on etsy.
[…] also cranked out some fitted sheets for the kids’ beds. I simplified the process a bunch from last time I made sheets. The edges are serged not hemmed and the elastic is only around the corners. I was able to get […]