I work as a bartender, and yesteday at the bar a couple older ladies came in for a drink. They were chatting about various craft projects they are working on and I got to chatting with them about my wife's crochet hobby, and it eventually led to talking about how I make my own camping gear. One of the ladies then perks up and starts talking about how she used to do that back in the day, and talking about making down jackets and sleeping bags and the like. She mentioned that there used to be kits you could buy that came with down pre-packaged in measured packets, and that the packets would dissolve. So all one had to do was sew the shell of the item to be filled with down, place the number of packets of down in each chamber or baffle, seal everything up, and then wash the garment or item. The process of washing dissolved the packaging the down packets came in, releasing the down into the chambers, and voila, you had a full baffle with no mess!
Looking around on google, there is mention of a patent filed in 1973 for this process - which matches with the time frame she was talking about. But I could find little else about it. Anyone ever heard of this, or know why it didn't catch on?
It would be awesome if the cottage suppliers of down could get a hold of this stuff, package the down they sell in user specified sizes, and then all you'd have to do is stuff the packets in the baffles of your UQ or TQ, then run it through a gentle cycle in the washing machine, and have a fully lofted quilt without ever having to clean up down, or find a way to fill baffles using a vacuum in a tent, or any of the other creative ways people have come up with to control the mess.
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