Mark Corners Of Fitted Sheet

My 89-year old mother has macular degeneration in both eyes, so her vision is very limited. Mom also has arthritis, which limits the feeling in her fingertips and strength of her hands. Like all of us, Mom would like to be as independent as possible for as long as possible.

Changing the sheets on her bed was very frustrating for Mom because she can't see the corner seams of the fitted bottom sheet. While Mom can feel the corner seams in most of the flannel and T-shirt knit sheets, she has great difficulty determining which corners are "head" and which are "foot." I cut three-inch-wide bias strips of a highly-contrasting fabric (usually black) and sew them along one corner seam of the flannel and knit fitted sheets. I sew the same size strip to the same corner of the flat top sheet. Mom can place those corners at either the foot or head (to rotate wear and tear on the sheets). One set of percale sheets has a very "busy" plaid pattern and elastic all the way around the fitted sheet, which makes it difficult even for me to find the corners. For that particular fitted sheet, I sewed black bias strips over each corner seam and another black bias strip along the bottom center of one of the short (head or foot) edges.

Note: This works if the fitted sheet seams are perpendicular and follow the corners of the mattress. For fitted sheets with corner seams that run diagonally from the corners of the mattress, the contrasting bias strip should be adjusted accordingly.

By DottieNM from Los Lunas, NM

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By 05/19/2013

How about sewing a button on each of the 2 bottom corners?

By 07/16/2010

God bless you for helping your mom be more independent in spite of her vision loss! I needed this idea, since I'm also visually impaired. It'll be easier to match "tabs" I can feel.

Mark the Top of Fitted Sheets

I have a California king size bed. I hate changing the sheets because I can't find the right way to put the fitted sheet on.

The fitted sheets look square to me. I have one set of sheets that are striped. Those are easy because I know to put the stripes vertical. One day it dawned on me to mark one corner of the other fitted sheets so I could place the sheet on correctly the first time. I used a regular ink pen and on the top corner I wrote the word "Top". I think a sharpie would work too because the ink does not wash off you will be able to see it every time you go to put the sheet on.

By Shirley from Henderson, NV

RE: Mark the Top of Fitted Sheets

I started doing this same thing over a year ago. I also have a Calif. King mattress. I just put a big X on one corner of the fitted sheet. It always goes on the bottom left hand side of the mattress. It works great. I did use a sharpie. (03/11/2009)

By Mary C.