The “It’s not easy being Green” Mattress Cover

This mattress cover only took, umm, 1 year to complete!! Aaaand, I finished it only a matter of hours before our friends from out of town came to visit last month over the long weekend!

Last year I was sick of looking at the old mattress on the floor of my boy’s TV room. They use it for jumping on: it is the ONLY piece of ‘furniture’ they’re allowed to do this on. It also comes in handy for Dad to take naps on!

So it’s *green*! And quite soft too. Just a run of the mill mid-weight spandex fleece, it’s sooo stretchy. Fleece on one side, slippery knit/spandex looking on the other, I have no idea what to call it. I found 2 large pieces of this stuff (about 60-70" in long) in the remnant bin at Fabricland; I am a confessed remnant bin raider, I can’t help it.

To keep it from being ripped off, like the old fitted sheet I’d put on and that only lasted minutes, I decided to make this a completely enclosed cover. The bottom is made up of strips of the fleece that frame a large rectangle of some ghastly green poly/cotton in the middle. I had to piece this bugger together from almost 18 bits as the fleece wasn’t big enough in any dimension; and I’d scaled it down 10% all around since this fleece has so much stretch. On the other end by the wall, there are 2 zippers, one 60 in and the other 12 in, that come around each corner by about 6 in or so.

The cover was a really snug fit, and we had a hell of a time getting it on. Or rather, I did, as the kids just had fun when the mattress would fall down on them. The only way I could get this on by myself was to prop it up on its side and wriggle the thing on…which is why it kept falling down!

So, another UFO done! Yeah!!!