<p>soozie and riverrunner, those sound beautiful! I’m not having any luck finding something online yet. Do you happen to remember what website you used, soozie?</p>
<p>Oh, we just ran into luck at The Company Store website. Thanks for reminding me of that website, applicantmum. There’s a quilt there my son likes. </p>
<p>Now for which size to buy. He will have an extra-long twin bed which measures 36x80. The quilt comes in a 66x86 twin size or a 86x96 full/queen size. We’re thinking the full/queen. On Facebook, current students have posted the beds can be lofted so he’s thinking having the extra length on the sides would be nice.</p>
<p>well, we ended up getting a comforter at jc penny online. Her roommate decided that they should get the same reversible comforter and switch off on what color will be on top. So that’s it. Now we need to go to stores and feel jersey knit sheets. She is very picky about the feel of her sheets. Good thing we are starting early! Her roommate is a little controlling for my taste, but I am not living with her, so I am keeping my mouth shut. She has told my daughter all the things that she should buy.</p>
<p>2blue…I gotta make dinner but will try to remember to visit this thread again and look up the links for you of duvet covers I have ordered and ones I will be ordering. </p>
<p>The other option is getting the cool fabric at a store and having them stitch you up the duvet which we did for one of them…at our local quilt store but these fabrics were really cool batiks and not calicos or traditional. She picked one for top and one for bottom. Anyway, will get you links later tonight.</p>
<p>Be careful with batiks. Inexpensive batik fabrics can fade and run badly. If two contrasting colors are sewn together, and not washed carfully, you can end up with mud. If you can get ahold of the label on the bolt, read the washing instructions! </p>
<p>The dye on some batik fabric we were considering over the weekend at a national chain fabric store came off on our hands so badly that we knew it would be a mistake to make into something that she would be sitting on and washing frequently.</p>
<p>Last year I bought myself a new down-alternative comforter at Kohls. It’s very lightweight, but really warm. We don’t use a blanket underneath it, even in winter. There weren’t a ton of color options, but it is reversible.</p>
<p>My d went with the spa look. White comforter/pillow shams/apron(I think, or was it beige?) with beige sheets. Very serene, & cleans up well with bleach. She added splashes of accent color with 2 big throw pillows.</p>
<p>I’ve bought down comforters from LLBean for the master bed and both S’s beds. Lovely. Wonderful. Quality.</p>
<p>Be careful if choosing down for the comforter fill. Freshman year, S had a down comforter. A tiny hole in the comforter caused the feathers to fly around the room. He patched it with duct tape. He replaced it with a synthetic fill (primoloft) comforter his sophomore year and it held up so well that he’ll be using it again this year.</p>
<p>The Company Store has great oversized down or synthetic comforters in a nice selection of colors.</p>
<p>I’ve actually heard that about the LLBean’s down, their flannel sheets are supposed to be the best too. But, our kids shouldn’t need them, it does always seem to be too hot in the dorms.</p>
<p>2blue…</p>
<p>Back now to you about the duvet covers. </p>
<p>Let me first start with the one that I found four years ago when D1 went off to college and didn’t like anything in the stores. I ordered this one online and had it shipped and it cost no more than most other duvet covers. It is handmade in India and is batik but is from a company in the UK (and has a matching pillowcase):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.onevillage.org/duvets.htm[/url]”>404 Page Not Found;
<p>So, D1 got it in blue and used it for four years and she loves it very much. In fact, now she needs a new duvet as she is getting a double bed for grad school and seriously considered getting the same exact one again because she liked it so much but I have found some others this time and I think she may go with a new one (but I am still waiting for her decision). I now see that the blue is sold out until Oct. anyway!</p>
<p>But when D2 went off to college three years ago, she also didn’t like any duvet covers in the stores and she liked the one her sister had a lot and so she got the same exact one but in the golden color (which is available right now…plus there are two other options on the site). She used it for two years and also in summers like this summer. But last year, she started having a double bed during the school year and so we had a duvet made by buying batik fabrics at a local store and they sewed it for us. </p>
<p>So, now with D1 needing a double/full duvet for this coming year, I did another online search and these are some that I found for her that I thought she’d like (but if you look on these sites, there are some other options but these are the colors or ones I chose to show her knowing her taste and I think she is going to pick one of these blue ones). AND a nice thing on this site is that they sell matching curtains and they are not expensive!! Also pillow cases. Check it out if your kid likes the bohemian, Indian, batik type look:</p>
<p>I bet she goes with this one:
<a href=“Luxury Indian Bedding Decorative Handmade Unique India Bedding | Saffron Marigold”>Indian, Batik, Duvet cover, Blue, White | Saffron Marigold;
<p>Here is another:
<a href=“Luxury Indian Bedding Decorative Handmade Unique India Bedding | Saffron Marigold”>Floral, Duvet cover, White, Blue | Saffron Marigold;
<p>Remember that the onevillage and saffronmarigold sites have more duvets than the ones I saved as favorites. </p>
<p>She did not like this one I found but I’ll pass it on as it is on sale from Crate and Barrel:
<a href=“http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=1624&f=26631[/url]”>http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=1624&f=26631</a></p>
<p>Have fun and let me know if your kid(s) end up wanting any of these!</p>
<p>And while we are shopping…
I also did extensive searching online recently for D2 to get bedroom curtains for her new apartment. I was going to make her curtains to go with the duvet I had made last summer with batik fabric from our local shop but I went back to the shop to get the matching fabric she had the duvet made out of, and those fabrics are sold out now and they don’t get them again. So, can that idea.</p>
<p>So, I did a search online and found her many options and rather than link you to each item I saved, I will link you to two sites with curtains that fit in with that same sort of “theme” as the duvets…as they are Indian…
***still waiting her final decision for a long while now too</p>
<p>This one is “Indian Selections”:
[Custom</a> Curtains, Sari, Saree, velvet curtains, table runners, sari duvet](<a href=“http://www.indianselections.com%5DCustom”>http://www.indianselections.com)</p>
<p>This one is “World Market”:
[Cost</a> Plus World Market - unique gifts, handcrafted furniture, home decor, baskets, jewelry, food/wine and more from around the world](<a href=“http://www.worldmarket.com%5DCost”>http://www.worldmarket.com)</p>
<p>(when I typed the url, it printed the link a bit differently than I had thought it would and not by the name of the site)</p>
<p>(no duvets…but sharing this for the curtain options…and not too expensive)</p>
<p>Thanks, soozievt! I’m checking out those links now.</p>
<p>Editing to add, these are great sites! You can get such unique spreads.</p>
<p>Two years ago there was a time in the summer months when the JCPenney’s catalog had no navy blue extra long sheets available in stock anywhere, the color of choice for boys I bet. I prefer the down alternative comforter to our past down ones- no need for a duvet for color, washable and the filling doesn’t shift.</p>
<p>Check Ikea. Being a European company, they seem to have a good selection of qualities and prices. I have never been disappointed.</p>
<p>2blue…I spoke too soon. </p>
<p>Ironically, D1 called tonight as she has yet to get moving on the fact that we have to furnish her entire apartment from scratch. She is working in NYC this summer and her new apartment for grad school is in Boston. The plan had been for her to come home one week to transition and shop. We found out recently that would not be possible as she has to be at grad school for an orientation we only just heard about. OK… so we plan to move her out of NYC, bring her stuff home to VT, but she travels to Boston (six days before apartment rental begins but stays with friends) and then we bring her stuff to Boston (her regular college stuff, not furniture) and we somehow have furniture ordered to get there? like IKEA which we have to pick out online, etc.)…whatever. </p>
<p>So, a while back I had sent her the links to those duvet covers and she liked them but now is not getting any of those! She likes the idea now of picking out batik fabrics locally to have a duvet cover made like her sister did last year. However, she is NOT going to be home now to pick out fabrics. OK…what to do? She told me color schemes she might like…I gotta go look through zillions of fabrics and pick for her?? Yikes…I am going to try to do that tomorrow…and get teensy samples of ones I narrow it down to and I am going to NYC this weekend and will see my kids and see what she thinks of the fabrics but this is not ideal. Though she seems to like what I find usually. Still, when I did it with my other D who came home briefly last summer, it took her a long time to choose the fabrics in the fabric store (this is a locally owned quilt shop where the propieter will sew the duvet for me). Now, I gotta do this on my own and show her snippets. Kind of a coincidence given that I posted what I did tonight. Somehow, we gotta furnish her whole place but she is in NY, I am in VT, and the apt. is in Boston. Yeah. Luckily she is paying for all of it!</p>
<p>Now, I gotta do this on my own and show her snippets.</p>
<p>No you don’t. She’s a big girl now and maybe she should be the one selecting and buying accessories for her apartment. It’s nice that she has a parent who is so willing to go above and beyond what is expected but to do so is really not teaching her anything about taking responsibility for herself. Let her make due with what she has all ready. If she wants new stuff, give her parental advice but let her figure it out.</p>
<p>Sorry…but that just is not what is going on here. She will be selecting and buying an entire apartment of furniture and goods and paying for it herself. The fact is, she will be going straight from NYC internship to starting graduate school in Boston when there was to be a one week break to come home to deal with this. She was only home five days after college graduation before starting an internship in another city. </p>
<p>She is doing all of her own shopping and picking EVERYTHING out. I am doing NOTHING without her. The only things I did without her was I like looking online as I have more time (my kids’ schedules are extremely full and long) and then sending them links to what I have found. They appreciate that and then make some choices. They have NO time to shop. Also, where we live in VT, we are not near shopping either, as it is rural. </p>
<p>She didn’t plan to have a duvet cover made. She thought she might order one online. The store that will make it is here in our little tiny town and not where she is. She’d pick the fabrics out if she were here and is sorry to not get to come home as planned (she thought she’d be home for one week after summer internship and so the plan was for her to do all this then and now she will have no break at all). So, it is truly my pleasure to find some fabrics and bring her samples so she can make a choice and give me the money to have the local person sew it for her. Everything else she is doing herself.</p>
<p>When I said I gotta do this on my own…my point wasn’t about putting TIME in for her but more that there are so many fabrics that it is hard to narrow it down without her when she’d have loved to have been here to do it herself. And this is the shop we know can sew this for her (I know the owner who will make it) and it is not like she could have it made in Manhattan and if she could, it likely would cost her more and she cares about the cost as she has to furnish an apartment from scratch. She knows I am going to see her this weekend and am willing to show her what I saw here locally by bringing her some samples. It truly is my pleasure to do this. </p>
<p>My D is extremely extremely independent and responsible and does not rely on me to do for her. She chose to discuss it with me and realized she didn’t like the online duvets enough and that she would like to do what her sister did and to have a duvet made at our local shop but unfortunately, she now cannot come home at all… She truly is selecting and buying her entire apartment. I do plan to come to Boston to help her do some of it as we enjoy that kind of thing together (and she values my input), and my husband will arrive with her belongings and we’ll move her in. </p>
<p>I have to tell you that my daughter takes responsibility for herself more than most kids I have known but I understand you do not know her. She has traveled to many countries all ALONE and made all her travel arrangements, all over the place…staying alone in hotels, campgrounds, etc. and has also driven 6000 miles to Alaska at age 18, lived in foreign countries, taken jobs in foreign countries where she knew nobody, and so on and so forth. She is now planning to travel to Thirld World countries on her own during her winter break. </p>
<p>My finding her some fabrics is something I offered to do. She isn’t relying on me as she will be outfitting her entire apartment herself, but we will be discussing what she is getting and if I see items of interest online, I will send them along as I have time to narrow it down and she will then deal with it. Her job is a ten hour day. She will have NO days off between work and starting a new life in yet another city for grad school. Sorry, if I made it sound like I was complaining. It was more that it would have been more fun and easier if she could have gone to the local shop with me to look through fabrics like her sister did with me last summer. That’s all. I am not shopping or buying anything for her apartment. We may get some things in Boston together. She is also funding it all herself. She also found the apartment herself and dealt with realtors, etc. </p>
<p>You also say let her do with what she has already. Sorry, but she owns NO furniture. She went to college for four years and her living quarters were always furnished. She HAS to buy furniture or she’ll be sleeping and eating on the floor. She has to get new linens as her current ones are for extra long single beds and she’ll be having a double and we own no linens in that size to give her.</p>
<p>You are right. At 21, she IS a big girl. And lucky for me, she acts like one. Because she is so independent and responsible, people have given her responsibilities beyond her age. So, I have no complaints as she is exceptionally responsible and independent. But moms can enjoy doing some things with or for their daughters. Even my mom does that with me and I am 51.</p>
<p>I agree with the poster who said shopping begins at home. When sending a kid off to summer camp - or college - send the towels and bedding you were planning to replace anyway. </p>
<p>As for comforters, the down ones they’ve had most of their lives stay at home. Synthetics are MUCH easier to wash and dry in dorm machines. Imagine the worst that can happen - spilled food, liquids, a bout of the flu - and you won’t want to think how someone’s going to clean an expensive goose down comforter in a commercial machine.</p>
<p>I’ve always made duvet covers from flat sheets (except for my own extra large queen size). It is very inexpensive, easy (just sew three sides, hem the top and add buttons/buttonholes) and you can match the sheets at a fraction of the cost of the ready made cover.</p>
<p>I noticed that one of the Web sites soozievt mentioned is World Market–there are also real-world World Market stores, at least in North Carolina, which is where I discovered them, and I assume elsewhere as well. If your child goes to school near one of them they are a great resource for decorative extras that you might not find at BBB, for example. Especially nice for setting up/accessorizing a first apartment. They have very reasonably priced folding chairs and director’s chairs, for example.</p>