Adventures with the Winnebago: Decor: How To Make Short Queen Sheets and Mattress Pad

Ever since cutting down our memory foam mattress, I've been considering some short queen sheets and mattress pad. We had a short queen in our travel trailer and I used men's suspenders under the mattress to keep them nice and tight, but I'd prefer not to mess with that. Anyway, I just couldn't cough up almost $80 on a set of sheets that I couldn't feel first, not to mention we have perfectly comfy sheets that have a whole lot of life left. Same goes for the mattress pad, the one we have is very comfy and is supposed to help with overheating on memory foam, so I really didn't want to buy one that would be of lower quality just so it fits better.

Enter my sewing machine and about 30 minutes of my time!

This project is easy enough for anyone with basic sewing skills and a basic sewing machine. I'm sure a serger would make it even easier, but I only have a regular machine and it was no problem at all.

So first I put the mattress pad on the bed inside out (yeah, it's kind of pilly on the underside). Then I lined up the corners and pinned the excess. I went about a foot away from the end so I'd stay away from the more complex corners and be able to do just a straight seam.

Then I did the same with the bottom/fitted sheet, clearly I'm not one of the tidy housekeeping types that irons her sheets:

Then I just did a straight seam across the whole thing, including the sides. After that I cut the excess off: on the sheet I used a pinking shears, but on the pad I used the pinking shears just on the thinner side panels and used a straight shears on the fluffy stuff.

Yes, I used black thread because that was what was in my machine, I'm lazy like that. I knew it wouldn't be visible when done anyway.

In making the bed I put the seams at the top so they'll be under our pillows and not a bump at our feet to annoy us. Actually, the mattress pad bump is not nearly as big as I thought it would be!