Mattress pad woes

So a few months ago I replaced our old mattress cover. The first one lasted 10 years... I was hoping to get a good run out of the new one. Now I haven't a clue how much we spent on the first one, but I didn't think it was all that much. So when I saw this one for $25 I figured that was a good price and I would pick it up. Well, within the first month it began to tear around the sides. I was ticked off, and every time I washed it and put it back on, the tears would get a little bigger... ANNOYING!
So last night, while I laid in bed wide awake (thanks to the thunder, lighting, and hail) I thought about ways to fix it without spending any more money. Then it came to me, I have old sheet sets that fit our bed, but are far to pill-y to use any more (usually I pull them out for camping). Hmmm, if I cut out the middle of the fitted sheet, cut off the crappy stuff on the mattress cover, sew them together... in theory I would have solved my current problem!

So off to work I set this morning...

Once I had to two pieces I wanted, I pinned right sides together (on the bed, it was much easier to work with it that way)...
Once I had it all pinned, I carefully removed it from the bed (I can't stress enough the careful part, good grief...) then brought it over to my machine and seamed it up (you're looking at the wrong side here).
I decided after I looked at it for a while that I wanted to reinforce that seam... I knew I would be tugging and pulling on it often with all the washing I do. So I went back over on the right side with a zig zag stitch.
Perfection... well, maybe not perfection... but WAY better than a ratty torn up mattress cover. And boy does it stay. The fitted sheet I used was a nice snug fit on our large mattress... so no more sliding about under our sheets!

So there you have it... now when your sides start to pull away, here is a no cost solution!