Flatpack Play-duvet

Hi, I'm a student at Howest college for industrial product design. This is the tutorial for an assignment about flat packaging. I decided to make a foldable duvet for children on which they can play, and added some pop-up elements to make it more interesting.

This tutorial requires some experience in sewing, understanding in origami, drilling and sawing wood.

The duvet exist out of 6 parts: the duvet, house, boat, tower and two cover plates.
The house is the least work so if you don't want to spent a lot of time on the boat and tower I advice to just make a couple of houses and create a little village.

Materials:

• 2m green wool fabric
• 1.5m brown felt (thin)
• >1m white felt (thin)
• 90cm of dark grey felt (thick, I used 3mm)
• 1 A4 of light grey felt
• 1 A4 of dark grey felt
• 1 A4 of light blue felt
• 1 A4 of darker blue felt
• 1 A4 of dark blue felt
• 2.5m vlieseline (to strengthen the fabric)
• 1,5m of wadding fabric
• Thread: green, brown, grey, white and blue (optional)
• 2 47cm squares of wood, I used 3mm multiplex
• Red wool (optional)
• Q tips
• Snaps, about 20

Tools:

• Sewing machine
• Needles
• Sewing scissors
• Drill, 5mm drill
• Glue (epoxy or wood glue)
• Iron
• Hammer

First off all we need to have all the patterns. It's easiest if you prepare these all at the start, then you don't have to worry about it anymore later when sewing.

• The house, this pattern is based on the pattern by Robert Sabuda.
  I enlarged it twice and a half, decided not to add the chimney and made the room out of 1 piece without the hole.
  http://wp.robertsabuda.com/pop-make-house/
• The boat, again I used the pattern by Robert Sabuda.
  I again enlarged it twice and a half, left out piece G and changed the B tab to a normal round tab.
  http://wp.robertsabuda.com/pop-make-ship/

• The tower, this is an origami inspired tower. You will need 72 of the same hexagons.
  These measure: top and bottom line: 1,5cm, center line: 3cm, total height: 6cm.

Need:

• Pattern
• Brown felt
• White felt
• Vlieseline
• Wadding
• Treads: white, brown and black
• 2 snaps

Do:

• Cut out the pattern out twice of the brown felt, make sure to measure 2cm for the seam
• Cut out the pattern out of vlieseline, once is enough
• Cut out the pattern out of wadding, 2cm seam
• Iron on the vlieseline
• Pin together everything and sew all pieces.Make sure to leave one side open every time to turn it inside out. Cut the excess fabric away before you turn the piece inside out.
• Assemble the house like the paper house of Robert Sabuda
• Add windows from squares of white felt sewed on with black thread. Sew across for little windows
• Add a door form a rectangular piece of brown felt and two little one of white felt.
• Add two snap on the flaps to attach to the duvet.

Done! Onwards to the boat

Need:

• Pattern
• Brown felt
• Light blue and darker blue felt
• White felt
• Vlieseline
• Wadding
• Q tips
• Tread: brown and white (blue optional)
• 2 snaps

Do:

• Cut out the pattern out twice of the brown felt, the sails out of white felt.

• Make sure to measure 2cm for the seam

• Cut out the pattern out of vlieseline, once is enough (not needed for the sails)

• Cut out the pattern out of wadding, 2cm seam

• Iron on the vlieseline

• Pin together everything and sew all pieces. Make sure to leave one side open every time to turn it inside out. Cut the excess fabric away before you turn the piece inside out.

• The strengthen the masts, push in Q tips. Cut little crosses in the deck and insert the masts. Sew the remaining pieces of the masts on the bottom of the deck.

• Assemble the rest of the boat like the paper one of Robert Sabuda

• Add waves by cutting them out of the two types of blue felt, sew on

• Add 2 snaps, one in the front and one in the back

Done! Onwards to the tower

Need:

• Pattern
• Grey 3mm felt
• Tread: grey
• 2 snaps
• glue (depends)
• 2 snaps

Do:

• Line and cut out the 72 pieces
• Stitch trough the horizontal centerline (picture 2)
• I used the "festoen stitch" for this, it works as a hinge between the pieces.
• Start by sewing 8 of them together in a circle, aligning the long edges
• The sew 1 piece between every two pieces (it will become a bit curvy, that's okay).
• Fold those last pieces inwards and sew a next piece next to it. (You'll be sewing trough 3 layers of felt)
• Continue this process 4 times.
• Add 2 snaps to the bottom, if the felt is too thick or you can't put enough force on it, you can use glue.

Done! Onwards to the duvet

Need:

• Green fabric
• Vlieseline
• Wadding
• Three types of blue felt
• 3 types of grey felt (thin)
• Tread: green, grey, white
• 14+ Snaps

Do:

• Measure out the duvet twice
• Cut out the vlieseline and wadding
• Iron on the vlieseline
• Sew this all together, leave one side open
• Cut off excess fabric
• Turn inside out, Sew close and sew around.
• Sew across diagonally, horizontal at 1/2 and all four corners at 1/4
• If possible, repeat for better hinges
• Cut out the lake, add little variations of blue to your liking
• Sew on the water
• Cut out stones and sew them on as paths
• Put 4 snaps on each outside of the blanket when folded
• Put 2 snaps for the house, 2 for the boat and 2 for the tower
• Add snaps between the layers, this helps keeping it all together

Done! Onwards to the covers

Need:

• 2 47cm squares of wood (3mm multiplex)
• Drill, 5mm
• Paper, masking tape, pencil
• Red wool
• 8 snaps

Do:

• Cut out the squares and sand
• Make up your tittle of your book (mine is called FLATVILLE)
• Draw this out on paper
• Tape to one of the boards
• Drill all points you need for your letters
• Sand all holes
• Thread the wool through the holes
• Add 4 snaps to each inside of the boards

Allright you made it to the last part! Let's assemble the duvet.

First off attach the house, boat and tower.

Then fold the duvet and attach the covers

The five last pictures show how to fold it

Done! Congratulations :)