This is the story of one girl's journey into the world of bedding, the story of her hope for the market, her inevitable disillusionment and her creative solution to the problem.
One day this girl finally grew tired of her trusty apple green twin comforter that was much too small for her full sized bed, always falling to the floor and bunching awkwardly on the bed. With some money in her pocket and a glimmer of hope in her eye, she began to search high and low for it's replacement. A bedding designer by trade, she was very picky. If she liked the pattern, she did not like the colors. It HAD to match her peacock blue silk drapes. If she liked the colors, she did not like the pattern. Often too old or young or trite. If she liked both the pattern and the colors, it was too expensive... or made of microfiber. Fed up with waiting for stores to release the perfect product, she decided to use the skills she learned in college, now somewhat rusty and dusty but still accessible, and dye her own duvet cover. It was cheap enough afterall, even if it turned out to be a failure. $50 ikea duvet + $25 ikea duvet cover (100% cotton) was not at all bad. And so Memorial Day Mess 2013 was born.
For a long while she did not have an idea of what to paint. Should it be solid? Textural/Watercolored? Lots of colors? Or few? Florals? Stripes? Dots? Oh my. But then it hit her that some floral paper cutout exercises she did would provide solid bones for a placed design, and she was sold. All she had to do was paint it. The hard part was over right? Wrong.
First came the duvet wrangling, consisted mostly of the girl crawling inside a duvet cover and laughing hysterically. Or really just trying to fit a very large sheet of taped together freezer paper into a very large duvet cover and also having it lie flat. A deceivingly difficult task.
Exhausted from a day of duvet wrangling and dye/resist/color tests, she began the actual painting the next day. Only to discover that it is really impossible to see what you are painting when you are painting white on white. So she embraced the messiness and inconsistency and hoped for the best.
While the resist dried, she mixed up an absurd about of dye, absolutely frightened of the idea of running out half way through. Once everything was dried and prepared and setup, the fun part began.
And went on. And on. And on. But was still fun even her knees and back did not agree. And finally.... suspense?! Could there be tragedy?! When the girl stood up to admire her, she kicked over her very large jar of navy dye. It was here that she had a choice. It was either he duvet or her hands. She sacrificed the hands, cleaning up the spill as quickly as possible while containing the spill to an area that was supposed to be navy anyway. And that's how this happened.
But then it was done! It was nearly 4am but she celebrated! She had triumphed through 2 days of obstacles that had challenged her ability to problem solve quickly and efficiently! And also made something pretty cool! And that's when terror struck. She had 24 hours for the dye to cure. 24 hours to wait anxiously and hope everything went as planned. She kept the duvet it warm place, occasionally turning on the oven and opening the door just to be sure. She eyed it nervously, peering through the clear plastic bag to make sure it was still damp. When finally it was time to wash it all out. The moment of truth!
And despite a very stubborn to wash out wax resist and endless navy dye, the duvet turned out pretty okay. Just the right colors and pattern. Even if the reverse looked like a clown suit and the navy dye stained some white areas. It was hers and she was happy to have such a fine work to keep on her bed!
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