Sew Easy Sleepover Bed

I love it when I have a genius idea, especially if it solves 2 problems in 1.

Christmas coming means visitors and overnight guests and many of our friends now have children.  Once kids are beyond the stage of sleeping in travel cots, but still little enough that they don't like being away from their parents in a strange house (my house isn't that strange by the way) then sleeping arrangements become something of a pain.

I've seen lovely sleepover beds on Pinterest before, made using a line of pillows, but whilst cute, using yards and yards of fabric, pinning, hemming and stitching kind of put me off...

Recently I re-organised my linen cupboard (yes, my life really is that exciting) and put into practise another genius idea from Pinterest and good old Martha Stewart.

Basically, you match up your bed sets, and store a complete change of linen (pillowcases, sheet and duvet cover) inside one of the pillowcases.  It keeps things neat, tidy and organised and makes changing the beds a doddle - no more searching for that matching pillowcase..

Anyhow, I had a number of leftover pillowcases that were surplus to requirements, and all of varying shades of dingy white.

You're ahead of me aren't you?  Yes, hey presto you can make a kid's sleepover bed by simply stitching pillowcases together, so just 2 or 3 straight lines of sewing = extra bed for sleepovers.  You can manage 2 lines of sewing can't you?

To sort out the dingy colour, I first dyed the pillowcases.  If you haven't tried machine dying then you really need to give it a go.  So simple and so satisfying.

With DYLON's new limited edition pre-salted dyes, it's now even easier.  Grab your chosen shade from your haberdashery store, Wilkinson's branch or John Lewis and away you go.

I chose Mushroom Grey (other colours in the ready salted range are Rustic Red and Lake Blue).  The grey goes perfectly with my guest room decor and you know me - I have to be matchey-matchey!

There's also a plethora of other colours to choose from in the regular range, you'll just have to remember add some cooking salt to the machine drum.

One pack of dye was enough to colour 4 pillowcases, but in actual fact 3 would have probably given enough length for a child's sleepover bed.

Once dyed, dry and ironed, pin the long edges together and stitch until you have a long row of pillowcases.

Iron flat your seams.  I used 'Oxford' style cases which meant I could have a generous seam allowance, using the border part, but it you're using regular cases, use a smaller seam allowance to you don't take up too much of the pocket space where the pillow goes.

Add your pillows and Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your Aunt and little cousin Johnny has somewhere to sleep when they stay over!

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