by andrewa » Thu 13 Oct, 2011 8:29 pm
No, Mic, it's my own design/sizing, however the thought process came after reading Roger Caffin's site. If you haven't looked at it, it is well worth a read, as it has stimulated my thought a lot about design of gear, and much of what you get commercially seems "over-engineered".
I am often after "niche" gear for my pursuits, and, as I like sewing, and designing, it is fun making my own stuff. I also used to work in MDs when a student in the 80's, so got very involved in discussing design issues with customers (and justifying the over-design of stuff!!).
A quilt like this is a great project, as it is flat, and doesn't require 3 dimensional thinking, as it does making an over designed differentially cut mummy shaped bag. Keep it simple (you know the KISS concept). Sort out the dimensions of the quilt and baffle/wall height/width etc; sew the baffle walls in; sew one side closed by inverting the edges , pinning them, and sewing them together; invert and pin the edges on the side you are going to fill (it's important to ensure that it will sew together evenly once it's filled), and then I do short sections of large stitches (to pull out later), where the walls are, leaving room to fill the baffles between the stitching, and then once filled, it's simple to sew the final seam, and pull out the big stitches. I've previously always filled sleeping bags in a tent, by hand, and made a lot of mess, but this time I used a vacuum cleaner, with mesh over the tube, and a cardboard tube to suck the down up, and this worked well, although my scales were not accurate enough to allow me to weight the down used per baffle, however I judged it by sight, which seemed to work OK.
Have fun. Making you own gear is v easy........ unless you choose to over-design in with lots of un-necessary curves etc!
Andrew A