SOVS�CK HACK for ALVINE Bedspread

Materials: ALVINE Bedspread, 100" zipper, upholstery thread, sewing machine

Description: I am going camping in a few weeks, and I wanted a sleeping bag with style. Along those lines, I devised this very simple sleeping bag hack.

SOVS�CK means "sleeping bag" in Swedish according to Google Translate. :)

You will need:

1 Sewing Machine (or a hand sewing needle and a lot of patience)
1 Size 16 (heavy gauge) Machine Needle
1 Spool Heavy Duty/Upholstery Thread
1 100" Sleeping Bag Zipper
1 Bedspread

I've included some lovely IKEA-style instructions (if slightly inaccurate and not all that informative - hey it's harder than it looks!) for a visual.

What you do is fold a bedspread vertically (so that it's very long/tall) and then sew a zipper on the outside edges of the fold. Instant sleeping bag. So incredibly simple, especially if you know how to sew. It took me about 2 hours to make (it took me as long to mess with the picture I took and create the instructional graphic).

I had a good bit of bedspread left over at the top, so I folded it over. You can easily use this extra as a hiding or pillow space.

There's not much to it, but here's a helpful tip about sewing zippers for the novice sewing hacker: Pin the zipper to both individual sides of the bedspread while it's zipped up, then unzip the two sides once each is pinned to its side of the zipper, to sew each side (try not to pin one side of the bedspread to another, or you'll sew through both layers and you won't be able to unzip your sleeping bag - it's an easy mistake to make, and I make it all the time with zippers). Not absolutely necessary, but it saves some headaches and the sleeping bag ends up even on both sides of the zipper. Alternately, if you're feeling brave and accurate, you could unzip the zipper all the way, and sew each side of the zipper to each side of the bedspread without pinning.

~ Stephanie, Maryland