Back to the Drawing Board

As a general rule of thumb, I don't have many allergies.  And if I do have an allergic reaction, it tends to be more like hives than sneezing and sniffling.  However after I put the Australian wool duvet on our bed last week, I got progressively worse.

It wasn't until early Sunday morning, after spending two very sneezy and runny nose days that I realized that all the symptoms had started the day the duvet arrived.  I got up at about 4 a.m. and dragged the offending item off our bed and replaced it with a duvet from the spare bedroom.  All symptoms stopped immediately, as if I had shut off a dripping faucet.  What a relief!  My nose is still chapped, but I learned a valuable lesson about taking allergies for granted.

I've purchased a queen size silk quilt batting and a 100% cotton duvet cover.  I'm going to pin the quilt batting into the duvet cover and then make rows of stitching running parallel to each other both horizontally and vertically, to make baffles.  The end result will be a home-made silk duvet, which I will put inside the duvet covers we already own.  I have no idea how well this plan will work out, since a queen size duvet is approximately 80 inches by 96 inches, and I have a standard sewing machine.  I tend to leap into projects that I think are perfectly straightforward and then discover that they aren't.  As I've explained before I am not a good sewer although I am enthusiastic going into projects.  I'm comforting myself that no matter how crooked the rows are or how amateurish the outcome, everything will be hidden by the outside duvet cover and only I will know the truth. 


By the way, I've just finished the new Zoe Sharp book "The Fifth Victim".  I literally couldn't put it down, it was so enthralling.  If you have never read any of her Charlie Fox books, I strongly recommend them.  Charlie is a very appealing character, the action is very tightly paced and believable, and her clients are well drawn.