We've broken the Old Finnish Men Who Aren't Drunk Talk to Stranger on Bus About the Weather Barrier

So something I didn't realize before we bought my weighted duvet is that weighted duvets have special duvet covers with strings that tie through loops around the edges. Otherwise the weight of it makes it fall out of the cover, or twist up and lie in a lump if the cover closes completely with zips/buttons/snaps.

Well, that's fine, but I'm using it on the bed and I really don't want to use any duvet covers that aren't flannel right now. It's WAY too cold for that! I can't seem to find any that are already flannel for sale in Europe though, just a bunch of different plain cotton ones. I probably have to buy a regular flannel one and sew the ties into it myself if I want a flannel one.

And of course I can sew, and it's not THAT difficult, it's just - fiddly. Sewing simple things is still fiddly if you don't have a sewing station somewhere with the stuff set up and organized, like if you're living half-moved-in and half-renovated in a kiiiiiiiind of dump that's freezing cold all the time? That's another thing, it's probably too cold to use the sewing machine right now, but OTOH, both of my rice hot packs have now got worn spots the rice is falling out of and there's nowhere you can conveniently buy more of them, so I guess I've got to sew regardless.

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I was PLANNING a sewing machine spot with all my materials organized nearby in the library, but the library is now the work from home office and there's not room for craft stuff in there; and the dining room has plenty of space, but no working radiators.

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No, we haven't got the radiators fixed, for the simple reason that neither of us has the Stuff needed to start cold-calling plumbing & heating contractors straight from the yellow pages. I think my subconscious somehow thinks if I tough out the weeks of endless snow and minus temperatures a plumber will just magically show up without being called, like as a reward.

When I say freezing cold: the livingroom is usually about 15° C (59 F) and the kitchen is a steady 13° C (55 F), both sometimes dropping a few more degrees particularly in the morning. The upstairs bathroom with the heated floor is a little warmer, the downstairs bathroom a little colder because it has a terrible draft from the chimney; the livingroom can rise to normal house temp briefly when the potbelly wood stove is at a roaring blaze, but this is short-lived and means going through a LOT of fire wood, which we buy a bag at a time (we haven't had time to figure out the local suppliers or arrange delivery or buy it directly yet). There's a space heater by the livingroom sofa and another by Wax's desk chair that warm their immediate environs, so the sofa is okay when you're swaddled in three wool blankets, usually with a hot pack as well, but anything other than cooking in the kitchen is pretty awful. I did improve my quality of life by adding a second pair of wool socks and a second wool sweater under my big puffy wool sweater for inside.

Wax tells me this is still not as bad as the Irish farmhouse she lived in as a teen. It's WAY OUT THERE for Finland though.

One other thing, on the subject of weighted blankets

I like the weighted blanket a lot: it DOES feel like a hug: I don't know if I feel a significant lessening in anxiety specifically, but I do really like it. In fact, I generally feel like I want it to be a bit heavier (that would exceed the 10% of body weight rule of thumb, but my current one weighs less than the lightest standard/ widely-available 'adult' one, which is 6 kg).

I kept in on the sofa for a while instead of a wool blanket, but a whole twin duvet (150x200, standard 1-person bedding in Finland) is a bit too large for convenience on the sofa, and it also kept trying to ooze down out the bottom of the duvet cover, a tendency worsened by being used in a slightly more vertical setting because I was always sitting up and the edges of it would hang over the footstool. I appreciated the difference more at night, though, so it's on the bed now, but I miss it on the sofa!

And at work we have a weighted throw blanket by Cura of Sweden, the Minky... and it's tormenting me constantly with its seductive heavy velvetiness.





I got to take apart and reassemble the display last week and before that it was already out there hanging over a clothes rod. It's made of incredibly plush navy velour (our store only stocks the navy, but it comes in red and silver too) and the velour is the surface of the blanket, the quilting going right through it, so it's not intended for a duvet cover: of course it's 100% polyester velour, which is probably intended to make it more easy care and stain-resistant in the absence of protection.

Coincidentally though, it also makes it ethically impossible for me to buy it even if it didn't cost twice as much as my weighted duvet, because we're mostly through our replace-synthetics-with-natural-fiber-as-much-as-possible campaign (and the synthetics have an AWFUL static effect with the angora house rabbits). Also, it's smaller than a standard duvet to make a good throw, but it's only a LITTLE bit smaller; I think the ideal size would be another few squares smaller in all dimensions.

You COULD easily make a quilted weighted blanket out of cotton velour instead, care issues aside, but the fabric would cost a lot more and be a lot less soft and plushy than the poly they've used. The only all natural material that looks and feels as amazingly cuddly would probably be woven brushed wool blankets, but you couldn't sew a blanket out of them; they'd have to be a removable cover... and they're anything but easy care. And then having the soft fabric as a removable wool blanket envelope around a weighted duvet wouldn't be as great: it just wouldn't look as lovely and inviting, it would be baggy, it wouldn't have those lush quilted pockets.

I think a good heavy cotton flannel would probably be best. It wouldn't feel quite as plushy as the Minky, but it would still feel heavenly and it's easier to obtain and work with. (There is a US maker that's released a flannel weighted blanket, but it's bed size and tartan I think? And also expensive, not to mention international shipping of this sort of product is far less sustainable and economically feasible than making it yourself would be... and making it yourself would be a huge pain.)

I'll probably just give up the beautiful dream of the weighted couch blanket until and unless I happen to spot a child's-size weighted duvet on clearance somewhere. One DIY project of adding ties to a flannel duvet cover is enough to be getting on with. The whole bulk glass balls concept seems like [sorry] weigh too much.