La Gringa's cozy bed

La Gringa's new comforter cover

Here is something else that I just finished recently − a comforter cover. It turned out well, but I'm not sure how practical it will be. I bought the fabric a long time ago in a rush in the U.S. and out of desperation because I was running out of time and couldn't find anything that would coordinate with a purple bedroom.

The fabric is a little heavy and has to be dry cleaned. It doesn't wrinkle quite as badly as I was afraid it would after unpacking it from storage after so much time, but El Jefe has a habit of kicking and wadding the comforter up at his feet during the night.

I'm actually thinking of doing another 'summer' bed cover of some sort, since we only use the down comforter four months or so out of the year. Most of the year, a sheet is all that you'll want over you at night, but the bed looks so bare during the day with only sheets. I'm thinking of a light, hemmed fabric, with no lining. Another insurmountable task − to find the right fabric.

I was happy to run into this purple braided trim in a fabric store here in La Ceiba. It's a perfect match for some of the purple in the fabric. The colors are actually deeper than they show in these photos and the fabric is not as shiny as it looks.

I also have a bunch of beaded silk throw pillows that match the various colors that I wanted to highlight in the fabric, but for right now, they are in the sala on the new furniture and look pretty good there, too. I like COLOR! Can you tell?

I've always been a little timid with colors but decided to go all out in our tropical home. El Jefe was at first a little doubtful about my choices in paints and fabrics (made without consulting him while I was in the U.S. and he was here supervising construction), but now that he sees them, he's a convert. We do frequently get disapproving looks from painters and those at the fabric stores, but as long as we love it, that's all that matters.

I did something interesting in the construction of the comforter. The comforter is too bulky to tuck in under the front of the pillows and isn't long enough to cover the pillows if they lean up against the headboard. I made a sort of wide hemmed flap facing the back side of the top of the comforter cover, which folds up over the pillows and tucks in the front underneath them.

It's hard to explain, but the pillows go on top of the comforter and the flap covers them as if they were inside it. Make sense? In this photo, I'm pulling back the flap to show the pillows underneath. I've only seen one comforter made like this in my life but it seemed such a good, simple idea that I've never forgotten it.

I used to always make decorative pillow shams for the bed, but it was always a pain to take the pillows out of the shams every night and put them back in in the morning. I like this idea better for making the bed quickly.

I sewed some ribbon loops on the corners of the comforter and some ties on the inside corners of the cover. The ties go through the loops and secure the comforter so that it doesn't slide around inside the cover. The bottom end of the cover is hemmed and invisibly closed only with Velcro strips so that the comforter can be removed for washing or summertime.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't buy this fabric, but it does look nice and cozy when the weather is cool. BTW, I finished it just in time for the hot weather! Oh, well, El Jefe likes it a lot and was really impressed with my work. I've put off all this sewing for so long that I think he was doubting whether I could really sew or not. ;-)