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I have a very expensive king size down comforter, which, when I bought it, they said wouldn't let the down shift around inside it. Well, the down has shifted. To the sides and the end. How do I fix it? Shaking it doesn't seem to work.
One thing I have tried is turning it around. Do you find the down goes to the bottom and sides?
I tried putting it in the dryer with three tennis balls on the cool fluff cycle.
But I didn't see much difference. I don't think there is enough room in a home dryer. Maybe it might work in the big commercial dryers at the laundromat..but I haven't tried it yet.
This might not work for your comforter, but I remember watching my Grandmother "make up" her feather bed.
She took the broom handle and hit the mattress all the way down...then took the handle and ran it down the mattress to smooth the topback...funny that I remember that after about 60 some years.
My Grandma had a feather bed too, but shaking it, or trying to, was all she did. My new fairly expensive cover has little feathers sneaking out all the time. Guess eventually I'll have nothing to worry about! Not laughing!
We thought it was going to be so neat to sleep on a feather bed, but I remember having to wake up and physically turn myself over.
I shake and turn mine till I'm back where I started.
I have found that turning seems to help. The only problem now is that all of the feathers are at the top of the bed and none down at my feet. So now I sweat and freeze at the same time! The feather do seem to be working themselves around though.
Billy - our feathers are escaping little by little also. Where is that vacuum...?
I had a feather bed as a child when it got all flat and smushed with too much in one place not enough in another...we put it out in the sun for the day...It was amazing how it fluffed back up...a good shake and it was good to go... and nice and high again...give it a try...shirleyt
I feel sorry for anyone with a featherbed. All of those feathers coming out and poking a person to death. I like the comfort of the featherbed, pillows, and comforter but just hate those feathers. They hurt!!! I used to spend hours picking out feathers til there were big holes in them and it was time to toss them.
We gave up on the feather comforter and ended up buying a silk filled comforter.
Apart from all the good suggestions given previously, one of the things to consider when buying a comforter is that has boxed baffling. This will stop the feathers all congregating at the foot of the bed or the sides.
I remember my grandmother putting the comforters out in the sun and also shaking them repeatedly to fluff them up again. Not worth the hassle in my view.
Many years ago now, I worked in a factory that made down comforters. A good box-construction, rather than channel, quilt will stop the down from migrating somewhat, but it is always going to move to the bottom of the "boxes" over time. If you were told it wasn't going to move, it was an exaggeration, it always moves, it's the nature of the down filling, but these things work to keep it from being all piled up at one end.
Once a month, put the quilt into your dryer on the no-heat cycle, for 30 minutes, to refluff the down.
Turn the quilt end-to-end every morning, when you make the bed. This will stop it from "collecting" down at one end. Also, stand at the bottom of the bed, after you've turned it, and give it a couple of vigorous shakes, to fluff it up.
If your down is all at the bottom end right now, get someone to hold the two top corners(the "empty" end), and you hold the two bottom corners(the "full" end), and just shake the bejeebers out of that thing for a good half-minute, and I mean really shake, not lightly, but put your back into it, while the person at the empty end holds on for dear life. Then put the full end at the head of the bed, and thereafter do the rotate daily thing.
Got2B...did you ever get it fixed? I WASH all my down stuff (comforters, pillows) in my washer! I think sometimes they need to be WASHED to loosen up. Then I put them in the dryer with tennis balls, and when I THINK it's dry, I'll shake it again and place in the dryer again. Finally, I place them in the SUN to smell really fresh. My mother washed hers about once a year, and I"ve always done the same. Think about when that down was on the ANIMAL. It certainly got wet often enough! :-)
I've been using a broom on it. It seems to help for a while but then I have to do in again. I have been thinking about actually washing it but I'm afraid to mess it up. I have another smaller one, more of a lap blanket, that I may try first.
Have tried it all; tennis balls, outdoors, shaking the thing until my brains are scrambled, and still have big, flat, apparently empty sections. Worse, the empty part always ends up exactly where my body goes.
Buffets/boxes aren't enough. The down still moves to end and edges. I take it out of the cover, spread it on the living room floor, and squeeze the down from the full boxes into the empty ones (they all have little channels). Labor intensive, but the only thing that works aside from cleaning.
That advice about folding it end to end each day sounds v. good. Will try that now.
