Underquilt design thoughts

[Bignfuzzy]

Thinking about ways to add more loft in the center baffles under my butt. Using the CatSpat worksheet just doesn't quite give me enough differential cut to compensate for the area that my backside seems to stretch tight. And the first one or two baffles along the edge seem to be wasted insulation.

What I'm thinking about trying is a slightly narrower quilt, 42" with wider down chambers in the center of the quilt, tapering to the CatSplat recommended widths at the end.

An 86" x 42" quilt with 10 chambers, 2.5" baffles, 3" chamber height, 25% overstuff and 825 down gives me an innershell baffle width of 4.2" and an outer shell baffle width of 4.8" If I increase the outer shell baffle width in the middle of the center four chambers and taper them to 4.8" at the ends, I get something like this for the outer shell.

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Anyone try something like this before? Seems like it would work aside from some challenges laying out the curves.

[BananaHammock]

I only used one of your ideas when making my Costco Faux Baffles. I made the 10 inch sections cut down to 7” when making the baffles and left the edges at a finished 3.5” making them half the size of the others because I agree that it is not as important. Be careful with a 42” quilt because if you don’t account for the loft taking up some of the width then your quilt may end up under 40”

[Cruiser51]

I think i get where you want to go, but it does seem to somewhat complicate the design/construction of the quilt.

Before I get to making a suggestion, I would suggest you check the tension setup on the quilt in question as a first step (if you haven't already). I made a winter quilt for my GE and was somewhat disappointed in a bit of a cold backside ... I subsequently fiddled/figured out that although the tension looked good (clew suspension) in fact it was WAY TOO TIGHT, I had to add about 8" to each side to get the quilt to perform .... I made a second one in a 3 season weight and again, add 8" to each side to get it to hang correctly and perform.

In your design scenario, you will basically be increasing the max chamber height 2 ways a) by planning a certain amount of differential and b) by widening the chamber width on the outside shell ... the end result of the design should be a greater maximum chamber depth (in the middle area), but the same baffle height throughout, if I understand correctly. This means the layout of the baffles goes from straight lines to curves, which depending on your sewing area and skill could be a pita to setup and layout.

During regular use I agree that a lot of the quilt outer area is not used, but when used with a diagonal lay, you want insulation where your body is, so that insulation will still be needed in those areas ... otherwise a cold shoulder/feet could be the result.

I think you may be able to achieve much the same idea by using a variable baffle height .... using your example, start the baffle height at 2.5" at the end and increase it to 3" at the middle. The shell differential cut will still give you the +.5" all along the chamber, but you get more loft in the middle, where you want it. To calculate the volume, you would just use the average baffle height of 2.75" (for that example). I think this would likely be much easier to layout and sew, while still achieving your goal.

Just a few thoughts.

Brian