You may know these as comforters or blankets. I'm talking about the kind of large blanket with a fluffy inner layer and a thin outer covering which gets washed.
Getting the inner layer back into the covering, evenly spread, and consistently keeping it there is a skill on par with folding a fitted sheet.
I hear good things about duvet clips but I can't be bothered to buy them right now, so here's my tips for manual wrangling.
Putting on the Cover
Start by opening the cover and piling the entire inner layer into it. Literally pile it in, it doesn't need to be neat as long as it's not twisted. Fish around for two corners, then bring them to the cover's corners by the opening.
If your duvet is not square and you consistently find the wrong side, you may want to find the corners before putting it into the cover.
Firmly grasp the corners from the outside and shake hard. I find a hard up-and-down motion works to unstick the pile, then flap it around to spread. If you have a twist, carefully set down the duvet keeping the corners in place, undo the twist, and resume shaking.
At this point the duvet should be basically in place. For good measure, repeat with the far corners to avoid excess material piling near the opening.
Close it up, keep the corners in place as you put the duvet onto the bed, and you're set.
Taking off the Cover
Open the cover and grab the corners of the inner layer closest to the opening. Gather them together and pull up out of the opening, letting the cover pile on the ground.
Gravity is your friend.
If you're doing laundry, or really anything other than putting another layer into the cover, make sure to close the cover. It's a black hole for small laundry items.
Keeping the Cover in Place
If you have clips, use them. As you may have gathered, the only thing which matters is the corners. If you have a properly sized cover and the corners are in place, everything else will go where it needs to go or you can shake it into place in seconds.
If the inner layer bunches up, grab whichever corners are closest to the correct position and shake.
If the cover slips around the inner layer so it's still flat but the edges of the cover and blanket are no longer aligned, open up the cover and realign the corners from the inside, then shake. Attempting to slip the cover in the other direction is a fool's errand.
Learn from my mistakes. Sometimes, you have to do it the annoying way.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
While wildly inefficient, I am in full support of anyone who wishes to regress to simpler times and fill a duvet by crawling around inside the cover dragging along the blanket.
I miss blanket forts. I should make them again.
- Rew