So, I have a very mundane problem. I have an awesome king sized mattress with a not-too-thick pillowtop. And a cool Ikea platform frame. My bedroom is the best.
My sheets suck though. I have two fitted sheets, one from Ikea, one from Target. Yeah, I know, you get what you pay for. The Ikea one is too big and gets all bunchy and has big wrinkles, and the Target one is too small, slips up so it’s just hanging on to the corners, then gets all bunchy and wrinkled. I hate them both.
I need one good fitted King sized sheet. Not a set- I don’t like a top sheet and I don’t need pillowcases. Any recommendations? Is this a common problem with King size sheets? I never has an issue with my full mattress. Is there any way to make sheets fit better?
For the one that’s too big, you can get sheet suspendersto hold them tight. I’ve used these in the past and they’re great. Come to think of it, they’d work on the slightly smaller sheet also.
Get more Ikea sheets. Put them on your bed “inside out.” Sew a running stitch up the corners inside of the one they already have manufactured, just a little looser than perfect, knot off. Do it again, to reinforce, either by hand or machine. Cut off the excess or leave it alone. Voila, perfect fitting sheets.
*You might have to futz with some pins and loosening the elastic depending on how “fitted” the sheets are, but you get the idea. This should take, like, ten minutes per sheet, tops. I hate sheets.
While you are at it, if you are anything like me, you might want to sew the bottom of your top sheet to the bottom of your fitted sheet. That saves so much time in bed-making and middle of the night tangle-fixing.
Oh man, I keep meaning to buy some of those for travel, since most hotels seem to lack fitted king size sheets. I have gotten to the point that when I get to a hotel and there is an honest to god fitted sheet on the king sized bed I leave notes begging housekeeping to not change the sheets, since they inevitably put a flat sheet on the next day. Gah! Flat sheets are crap as bottom sheets, especially on a king! :mad:
You can do the same thing by sewing 1 1/2" elastic to each corner. I’ve don’t that with all our sheets, because my husband wrestles the bed and the sheets lose.
When my husband gets the job he interviewed for today I’m going to order LE sheets! They look awesome. And doesn’t LE have some sort of amazing quality guarantee?
Last month I got so pissed about too-small king fitted sheets that I plunked down $199.00 for a set of Wamsutta sheets. The sheets are very, very nice and they are big enough, which was my problem.
However, I don’t need very very nice sheets. I just want sheets, for pete’s sake, that fit. I don’t need high thread count, or anything else special. I just want sheets that fucking fit the bed they’re supposedly made for. Apparently I have to spend a shitload of money to get that.
And like the OP, I too do not always need a set of sheets - I wear out the bottom sheets in a few months (damn ADHD) but the top sheets and pillowcases are just fine. I would just like to be able to get another bottom sheet, but the only ones I’ve found are $200 apiece - even worse than the set I bought.
How about marine sheets? I seem to remember the sheets for sailboats used to be made with some sort of drawstring deal so they would fit anything from standard rectangular to the slightly trapezoidal shapes of forward v berths.
I’ve had luck at Tuesday Morning and TJ Maxx. They carry odd assortments of high-end linens that often come individually instead of in sets. Because the stuff is good quality it’s more likely to have deep pockets that stay put on pillowtops.
Yeah, the thing about high-end sheets is that it’s not just the nice feel of the high thread count, it’s that they don’t shrink up like less expensive sheets. I lost count of the bargain sheets which became useless after a few washings because it became impossible to stretch them to fit over the mattress anymore. We gave up and started buying higher-priced Wamsuttas, like you, and now the fitted sheet is always generous enough with the fabric that it always fits, even after dozens of washings.
IOW, the cheaper ones were not a bargain if you had to throw them away in a year because they had become too small.
Ross is another good spot for finding nice linens at knocked-down prices.
I have the opposite problem - I’ve got a regular-depth kingsize mattress, and no one seem to make sheets for those these days. It’s all deep-pocket sheets for the stupid pillowtop mattresses. All of my sheets are like twice as tall as my mattress.
Elemenopy, would your technique work for that? I don’t really sew, but I’m tempted to give it a try.
Redtail, yes, something similar should work. You don’t need to be too neat about it. In your case though…lemme think how to explain. Try this. Put sheet on mattress. Get someone to help you flip whole mattress upside on its side. Arrange sheet as taut and even as possible. Corners should be evenly baggy, making 4 diagonal elasticky “U” shapes. Fold over about a quarter of the slack in each of those “U” shapes, making them "V"s, and safety pin. Check the other side and see if it looks good…if not, tweak your safety pins before sewing a few rows around the folded over part. Note: If you only have elastic in the corners, this isn’t going to work so well, but if you at least have elastic on two sides, it should be fine. I made some serviceable crib sheets with no elastic once, actually. Let me know if you try it.