Thru Hiker has a good how-to for making a down top quilt.
http://thru-hiker.com/projects/down_quilt.phpThey also sell material that you can use for your shell (M90 and M50) which are 15 and 10 denier nylon (respectively). It is a bit pricey though. I made a quilt using the M90 and it has held up well for several years. You can buy heavier (and cheaper) material elsewhere, but make sure it is downproof.
The fill weight on the down corresponds to how much space it can fill up. 600 fill weight means that 1oz of 600 fill weight down will expand to fill 600 cubic inches of space. Say you are building a top quilt that needs to be 55" x 85" x 3". This would equal 14025 cubic inches of volume. 14025 cu in / 600 = 23.375 oz of down to fill the space of the quilt.
Higher fill weights of down (800 or 900) means that it takes less down weight to fill up the capacity. If we used the same quilt dimensions above, but instead used 800 fill weight down, 14025 cu in / 800 = 17.531 oz.
Working with down is pretty messy. After making one down quilt, I am more than happy to pay somebody to do it for me in the future.
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