Straw Mattresses

So the rope beds are very comfy, but only if you have a mattress. Somehow, I don't think I'll be taking the mattresses off of Haley's bed to go camping with. Also it's more than a little pathetic to go to all the trouble of making a medieval bed and then stick a modern mattress on top! So I needed to make medieval mattresses. Of course, there are always feather beds, but that's a bit outside my price range. Instead, I decided on straw mattresses.

I ordered my fabric from PeriodFabric.com. I used their neutral cotton duck cloth which is a very heavy duty 60 inch wide fabric. To make 2 twin sized mattresses, I ordered 11 yards. (Less than $40!) When it arrived, I washed it on hot and dried it on hot, so that I'd be able to wash it later without worrying about it shrinking.

Then I set it aside and worked on my procrastination skills for a week or two. Fast forward to Spring Break. I'd like to go camping this week, but in order to do that I'm going to have to pounce on any break in the rainy weather, which means I'd better get my camping gear ready to go! This morning I looked at the weather forecast, and although it was nice out today, this was going to be the last nice day until Thursday at least. (I might not get to go camping this week). I knew I needed nice weather for this project, so I hooked up my trailer and went over to the feed store to buy some straw. Less that $16 for 2 large (3 string) bales of straw!

I spread about half a bale of straw out on a tarp in the sun, and sprayed it with some essential oils* in rubbing alcohol. I'm hoping the smell will deter any bugs that might otherwise set up housekeeping in my new mattresses. The straw looked clean and smelled nice :) It was sunny and breezy, so I stirred and sprayed periodically while I worked on sewing the mattresses. We laid the fabric out on the ground and cut it outside.

We used a carpenter's chalk line to snap a nice straight cutting line for me to follow. It worked great -- I wish all my sewing projects had straight lines so I could use it all the time :)

My friend recommended that I use upholstery thread. Dang, I could use that stuff as fishing line! My seams are going nowhere! It was a pain to get set up though; the darn thread keep trying to unroll itself from my bobbin as I was winding it!

Once the mattresses were sewn, we started stuffing them with straw. We filled them as full as they would go, picking them up and shaking the straw to the bottom as we went, so that they looked more like beanbags than like mattresses. The straw compressed very quickly though, so that they looked like mattresses again. In fact, I may need to top them off with more straw in a couple of days.

The verdict: A success! I got a prickly straw rash from filling the mattresses, but the straw doesn't poke through once inside. They are very comfortable and the essential oils smell nice :) I'll probably want to fluff the mattress every day or two to even it out, but I'm looking forward to spending the night on my new bed :)


* My recipe was 1 cup of rubbing alcohol to 5 drops each of lavender, citronella, cedarwood, rosemary, eucalyptus, and peppermint, mixed up in a big spray bottle.

I've written up walkthroughs for anyone interested in making their own rope bed or straw mattress.