A frustration that I have with my UQs is that my head, shoulders and feet are rarely all on the UQ at any given time.
On my KAQ shaped fleece UQ, if I get my feet in the right place, then my head and one shoulder hang off. Or maybe I can get it all aligned perfectly, but then when I move around in my sleep the UQ moves around and I wake up with cold feet, head, or both.
To solve this I decided to GO LARGE!
I had been avoiding a HUGE UQ due to weight considerations, until now.
Been making lots of IX stuff lately, so that was the obvious choice for this project... or so you would think.
Any guesses what I made this out of?
I started two rectangles 60" wide and 94" long.
Yeah, I said 94" inches long.
I ran three 1/4" tall longitudinal pleats the full length of one layer. That will be the top layer of the UQ, and is now 1.5" narrower than the bottom layer, to give differential and spacing for the very small air gap needed between layers.
I cut a 15" x 57" triangle off of diagonally opposed corners.
Then I cut a dart 7" wide and 9" deep on each side just beyond the triangle that was removed.
So far, this is the same as the KAQ pattern... only 4" longer.
(I attached a scan of the KAQ pattern, with my chicken scratch on it. It is not a great quality scan, but you should be able to get the idea from it)
The next step for the KAQ is to cut a 18" x 30" triangle off of the diagonally opposed corners that were not cut already. I skipped this step, as I found it makes the head and foot end too narrow for me.
Then I darted each corner. The top layer darts are 1" narrower and shorter than the bottom layer darts... or is it the other way around? I don't remember at the moment. (BTW, there are two layers of the mystery insulating stuff)
Next I attached 1.1oz rs to one side and folded it over the edge to make an inch or two of channel along all 4 sides for the suspension.
Honestly. I did this last week and it looked like I had screwed up the width on the ripstop cover, so I hadn't even attempted to attach it to a hammock.
I was up early this morning and had a few minutes to kill before work, so I strung it up to my FrankenBird ... and what do you know?!
It fits fine and I'm thinking it is going to be a success.
Even though it is HUGE, it is super light. My scale has shipped, but it hasn't arrived yet, so I haven't weighed it. However, it feels lighter than my 48"x60" 3 layer IX UQ.
Anyone figured out what the insulating material is yet?
Lighter than IX, white, did I mention light?
Oh, and it insulates very well.
By the way, ignore the temporary yellow mason line UQ suspension. I have run out of shock cord... again.
If I can scrounge up enough shock cord to make it work, I may field test it tonight... although it is only supposed to get down to 53*F tonight.
ahhhh, but it will get down to 36*F the following night. So this could be interesting. If it does OK at 53 tonight, then I can see if it will hold up close to freezing the following night. (fingers crossed)
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