UnderQuilt Build - Dutchware Raffle Project

[heycorb]

It is much thicker than any regular polyester thread. What you do is wrap it on the bobbin only, in an unstretched state. I have been setting my stitch length slightly longer, and setting the tension slightly higher, and it seems to work well. I measured with the last test, and can get about 26 feet of stitching with a full bobbin.

Not terribly precise, but I measured about 0.55mm diameter. That's 1/46in, so you had a pretty good guess!
Attachment 106159

Glad I asked that. Guess who would have been the guy to run it as a topstitch?

[Mcdoc]

Finally started sewing work on the quilt. I think I have the final dimensions down and am going to cut material tonight.

Today I began work on the baffles. That plan calls for LOTS of baffles spaced 3-4" apart. I'm using the 1.5" pre-cut no-see-um baffle material from dutch. It's straight, easy, and saves time cutting strips. It is my understanding that baffles are folded over before being sewn on to make them stronger and less likely to unravel. I think this will be difficult to do while managing all the shell material under the arm of the sewing machine, so I decided to do it as a separate step. This meant hemming both edges of (80 ft) of baffle material! Also, with the 1.5" baffle height, I wanted to make the seam allowance as small as possible to retain the most height from the baffles.

With inspiration from snowball at this thread, I made a seam guide tool that made things a WHOLE lot easier.

It is made from some scrap aluminum flashing I had- the kind for roofing and siding. It's really thin and not the best, but I doubled it over before folding the 'guide' bends. It took a little fiddling to get it in the right place, but once it was dialed in I could run the machine full-speed.

guide1.jpg

guide2.jpg

guide3.jpg

It made feeding the machine a one-hand job- so I could take a short video of how it works at the same time:



I hemmed about 160 feet of no-see-um with a 1/8" fold to only loose a total of 1/4". It took about an hour and a half.
New baffle width is 1.25" which is just what I calculated.

bafflehemmed.jpg

[Mcdoc]

I stayed up late Friday night and made some progress on the under quilt. I've been wrapped up in several other projects that take priority- like finally potty-training my 2 year old. I'll gladly give that project as much time as it needs!

Once I nailed down dimensions for the outer shell layer, I had to figure out how to cut what I needed from the 3-yard sheet of green argon. This was easily done in sketchup by just fitting the pieces together into one 59" x 107" box. They didn't all fit, so I had to trim the triangle sections into two pieces. I made sure to add a 0.5" seam allowance where each piece had to be sewn together, and a minimum 2.5" allowance on all outside edges.

sheet cuts.png

After the kids are in bed I can safely steam clean the kitchen floor and lay out the Argon pieces.

IMG_3646.jpg IMG_3647.jpg

I started with the brown argon and made the mistake of measuring and marking everything before I realized that the material was upside-down and I was marking on the non-calendared side. Nothing wrong with that- it's just backwards from how I had planned it out. I Oh well: pour another beer, brush off the chalk, flip it over and start again. Measure twice like 6 times and cut once.

Once everything is cut, I am glad to see that it fits together just like it looked on the sketchup model. Here you can see the seam allowances where pieces come together:

IMG_3649.jpg IMG_3650.jpg

Then it is just a matter of sewing the pieces together into a single sheet. Not sure if it matters, but I did french seams on everything. The edges of the Argon are safely hidden inside where they won't fray, and the outside surface of the shell looks really nice. The seams will blend right in when the baffles are attached.

I ordered these wonder clips specifically for this project and I am very pleased with them. They work faster and easier than pins and don't leave holes. Plus you can use them for anything, like sealing bags of potato chips broccoli and stuff

French Seam:
IMG_3651.jpg IMG_3652.jpg IMG_3653.jpg IMG_3655.jpg IMG_3656.jpg IMG_3659.jpg IMG_3661.jpg

The final shell is exactly like the sketchup drawing, and should work great. I love the feel of the Argon67 material and it is extremely light. Here is the calendared side and outer side:

IMG_3663.jpg IMG_3664.jpg IMG_3665.jpg

This step was actually a lot of work both in design and putting it together, and all this would have been completely unnecessary if I were making a 'standard' under quilt with straight baffles that could be cut from a single rectangle piece of shell material. That's not what this project is, though. It's got to have some unique awesomeness in it!

[FLScouthanger]

Looking good! Can hardly wait to see the finished product. Best of luck on sewing the shell material to the baffle no-see-um--don't envy you on that part.

[Dutch]

I love it. The stripes will be worth is in the end.

[FJRpilot]

Great project! Thanks for sharing with us. Do you have any pointers in using Sketch-up for 2-D projects!

[Mcdoc]

Great project! Thanks for sharing with us. Do you have any pointers in using Sketch-up for 2-D projects!

Yes; two things can make it much easier to use for 2D drawing: First, select from the menu Camera>Standard>Top. This changes your view straight down on to the x and y axes. Second, select Camera>parallel projection. This eliminates the 'perspective' view and kindof "flattens things out" on the drawing surface. I rely heavily on the measuring guide tool and the angle guide tool to mark specificly measured points that you can snap lines to.

I learned the basics of how to use it in maybe a 1/2 hour via YouTube tutorials. There is plenty I still don't know but learn as i go, or use google to look up specifically how to do something. Even with the above settings the pan tool will put you right back in 3D.

[FJRpilot]

Yes; two things can make it much easier to use for 2D drawing: First, select from the menu Camera>Standard>Top. This changes your view straight down on to the x and y axes. Second, select Camera>parallel projection. This eliminates the 'perspective' view and kindof "flattens things out" on the drawing surface. I rely heavily on the measuring guide tool and the angle guide tool to mark specificly measured points that you can snap lines

Thanks! I've been playing with. It and appreciate your pointers. Great work so far on your project. I'll be following along to watch your progress.

[Mcdoc]

Cranked out some progress on the outer shell over the last few evenings and it is now complete with baffles attached. It was fairly easy to do as I had already hemmed all of the baffle material. First I measured and marked lines: they are all 4.6" apart, but again, this layer is differentially cut (wider than the inside layer) and hemi-spherical, so the baffles will likely be much closer than this measurement.

IMG_3679.jpg

Then, It's just a matter of sewing the baffle material along the lines. I would roll and clip the edges I wasn't working on so they didn't get in the way, and it went pretty quick: I just had to focus on keeping straight-ish stitch lines. I would know when I was right on the chalk line as sometimes the needle would send up a little puff of chalk as it withdrew from the argon shell.

IMG_3687.jpg

Here it is with all 20 baffles attached: Inside and out.

IMG_3690.jpg IMG_3694.jpg

I was planning to make corners like Tpole did on his build, but since I have a diagonal design there is no one edge that lines up with a baffle chamber. I think instead I will just pleat the outer shell as needed on all 4 sides to match the inner liner dimensions.

Next up will be a lot of sewing as I have to shirr the inner layer (at 1"spacing) and then attach the whole scrunched-up piece to the other side of all the baffles. That might be a challenge.

[woodtwigg]

Great work! This is really an incredible project and your detailed exposition satisfies even the most meticulous of gear nerds! :-D