MYO Down Quilt ( another one)

[andrewa]

Decided to make yet another quilt....(#4!)....

The not so helpful kitten was needing another project, so we knocked this up over the last 2 days.

Argon 90 fabric and 500g of ?800 loft down from Simon at Tier Gear. Total weight 770g

Decided on vertical baffles for top half, to stop down movement away from the top, and horizontal across bottom. It is intellectually challenging working out how to do all the seams inside, especially when the 2 halves join. I used Simon's baffle material which is about 6 cm wide, and tuck stitched the baffles. I could have saved a little weight by stitching the baffles in directly, rather than tuck stitching them, and by making them out 0.35oz cuben, but I rather like my down items having minimal exposed stitching! Footbox is a simple draw cord, with 3 press studs spread over the lower 40 cm of the quilt sides.

Dimensions are 145 cm wide at top, 115 cm at bottom, and 225 cm long (hood designed to cover my head as per Roger Caffin concept). Baffles are 13.5 cm wide, and each contain 20g down on the bottom half, and on the top, 30 g in the middle ones, and 20g on the side ones.

Should be very cozy for ski touring.

Andrew A

[weeds]

Nice work........

[undercling-mike]

That looks like a nice warm one and you shouldn't have any issues with down shifting, that's for sure. How did you manage the transition between the vertical and horizontal baffles with the tuck stitching? It seems from your quoted dimensions that you would need a wider piece of fabric than the roll width so did you join two pieces together at the transition?

I've done one quilt with sewn in fully baffled differential cut footbox where all of the seams where inside in the footbox (the side seams are folded in and top-stitched above the footbox). It was a good challenge figuring it all out but it made the whole process take quite a bit longer so now I settle for a tuck-stitched seam in the footbox and of course it makes no practical difference.

[andrewa]

Mike, yes, the 2 pieces are joined at the transition from vertical to horizontal, and to join those sections together, I sewed the last seam by inverting the quilt through the top horizontal baffle. The only external seams are around the sides and top. I have also made differentially cut sleeping bags and box walked down jackets, and it really does your head in trying to hide the seams, with no obvious improvement in performance for my use.

I don't think I'll bother with tuck stitching again - I was looking at one of my previous quilts, and noticed that I hadn't with it, and I've had no issues with the stitches "catching" on things or breaking.

I'd actually like to make a cuben quilt, hoping that the easy venting of a quilt might minimise condensation.....as per:

http://www.suluk46.com/RandD%20-%20RD4%20WLQ.html.

A

[undercling-mike]

Would it have been possible to sew all of the tucks then sew the two shell panels and two liner panels together and then sew on the baffles to the already joined pieces? In any case, good job on hiding that seam. It appears from picture 2 that the vertical chambers are not sealed at the bottom and are all joined to the top horizontal baffle, I guess this allows you to redistribute the down if needed to maximize warmth.

A cuben quilt would certainly be an interesting project, you could make a very light shell and with the vapour barrier effect you could make something with a crazy warmth to weight ratio. If it were me I'd use the lightest possible cuben, fairly minimal (but tested as acceptable) dimensions and I'd go for a fully bonded shell with small cutouts in the baffle walls with mesh to allow air to pass between the chambers (I saw this on BPL I think) and an inflation port to loft the quilt. It should be possible to make something usable to 0C for less than 300g I think, and for snow use at around 400g. Combine with one of the new Exped synmat winterlite pads and you could have a snow worthy sleep system for around 800g!

As much as it's an interesting exercise to think about how far the limits could be pushed I don't think I'll pursue this path due to expense, the narrow range of comfortable temps with the vapour barrier effect and general comfort of the material. The discussion certainly seems to have died down on cuben quilts from a few years ago but there must be some happy users out there.

[andrewa]

Mike, there's acrually an extra horizontal baffle that sits at the junction of the vertical and horizontal ones, and which doesn't show up on image 2. It is about 1/2 cm below the vertical baffles, but not joined to it. This got sewn in at the same time as joining the vertical and horizontal baffled sections.

I have some otherwise unusable 0.35 oz cuben, and was thinking of using it for a quilt. It's too light for dry bags ( done this - they ripped) and I already have a cuben tarp. It would be a fun and easy project, especially just gluing the baffles in place!
I realise that the discussion has quiet ended in recent years, but it would be nice to understand what the limitations have been.

A

[undercling-mike]

If you have the materials just lying around then you'd pretty much have to give it a go. It'd certainly be an interesting project and an excellent conversation starter.