Good day all,

I was looking to get the wife and I new bags and the price is just silly and the weight to price ratio recockulous! My plan is to make a wide ultra lightweight quilt. I will use it to cover my wife & I in VW van camping and for my Mt. Rainier and other summit trips this year.

I will share a small tent with a partner and to lighten our weights we will use my quilt for our sleeping (Ed Viesturs style) with some fat insulated pads underneath. This will shave valuable pounds and volume.

I bought a jacket from REI called the Spruce Run http://www.rei.com/product/755084 . It is a Quantam Pertex lined Primaloft convertable jacket. It is my new favorite piece. It is warmer then my down jacket at half the size and hundredth the weight. The material on the jacket is so nice my wife and her friends can't stop rubbing me.(I swear thats not the only reason I like it.) Seriously, they won't stop. They goto my closet to look for it when they come over. That said I want to make this quilt to resemble my jacket as close as possible. I will be using for my reference "Glenn Hecko, 12/99 LIGHTWEIGHT BACKPACKING QUILT http://www.backpacking.net/makegear/make-quilt/index.html "
Being 9 years later I would have hoped for some better space age materials since then but all that has happened is the same stuff got cheaper.

I bought this material from them for $2.95 a yrd. It was bought from the Eddie Bauer Repair shop. They don't know exactly what the material is but it had a great DWR and was lighter & softer then Supplex. Super Breathable! As light as the 1.3 ripstop but softer and with the DWR. I want to say it's a wee heavier then my jacket and not as supple.

Anyway I got 9 continuous yards of 60" Mystery Fabric for 2.99yrd. The heavier supplex was $9.99. I almost got this killer stuff called Silkara. It was very nice and might be a Bivy or spring sack choice.

I then got 4.5 yards of Primaloft One 3 oz. $11.95/yd. I plan on using two layers to make it 10°-20° f. Using the Primaloft One scale, I found it to be good to 10° at 6 ounces of loft. The Sport needs 8 ounces.

I'm also thinking of using the mystery fabric as an under sheet as well. Something to separate us from the pad underneath. I was looking at doing something like silk but the wife thinks the fold over 3 times would make it very wind and weather strong for instant bivys (she worries). By folding it over twice it makes a pita type quilt that would have one side with two layers of 60mph DWR that could be a strong weather face on Everest or to sleep inside.


The more I think about and photoshop her idea, the more I like it. We also plan on making head wraps like Jack r better but ours will look better!

I plan on putting shock cord & u clips through one end of the quilt to make a foot box for solo or mountaineering use.

Using a Z46 Nylon thread

I don't know what I will use to do the yarn Glen uses to hold the insulation. The method seems a little rough (no offense) and I wonder if anyone has a better way. I'm going to be a stickler about allowing full loft and durable ideas.

Any ideas, tips, suggestions, or other anything?

I'm open to ideas or your previous mistake stories. Simple things I may not know as a manly seamstress.

After writing all this I may have decided to make a solo quilt that is the worst case scenario worthy. Example, Bad storm hits and your lost away from your tent. Pull out your primaloft quilt and make like a cocoon. Maybe a two-ply Gortex with my mystery backing. Wind & Water proof yet nummy warm.

I just scrolled up forever, sorry for the long post.
Thanks,
GuruJ


Edited by GuruJ (02/18/08 05:52 PM)