Wool Batting Underquilt

[Mfturner]

Felt is the English word too, usually felting is home done by boiling (would need a huge container for under quilt, like a 5-10 gallon brewing kettle) or by washing then drying with blue jeans etc to abrade the material. Not all yarns felt well, it depends on the source material (some military blankets have nylon blended in), while others felt great. @hutzelbein’s links look promising if you want to work with bulk material, I have friends that spin and dye yarn so thus my interest in crocheting.

[Yannick]

Felt is the English word too, usually felting is home done by boiling (would need a huge container for under quilt, like a 5-10 gallon brewing kettle) or by washing then drying with blue jeans etc to abrade the material. Not all yarns felt well, it depends on the source material (some military blankets have nylon blended in), while others felt great. @hutzelbein’s links look promising if you want to work with bulk material, I have friends that spin and dye yarn so thus my interest in crocheting.

ok, a 3mm thick felt could already well prevent cold wind penetration into the UQ, but that alone would be pretty heavy. Maybe not bulky, but certainly heavy.

Crotcheting is a good way to make warm wool clothing. Are there crotcheting machines? Crotcheting an entire UQ by hand would take thousands of hours.

I am picturing a fully crotcheted UQ with colourful flower patterns. This would look so funny.

[Rolloff]

Weight and suspension work against each other. Concept is great and organic but not hiker friendly. I've seen Shug and the ultra-cold hangers using it, but for the most part it's a worn item not so much a pack it up and haul it arounder even when weight is not the main factor.

We should however flood Dutch with printed fabric flower requests until he thinks he's a florist

[Mfturner]

There are knitting machines, a loom would be fastest, maybe there are weaving craft centers around? I could probably crochet something simple (summer weight 50 deg prototype) in the evenings in a couple of months. It might be cool to come up with a larger graphic pattern though, the “canvas” of an under quilt is pretty large…now you have me thinking, a graphic Mountain range silhouette or a tree line or something. Or even just a large graphic rhododendron or azalea flower on each side maybe. Hmmm..,

[Yannick]

please dont.

[dscotthep]

My wife uses looms like these to make blankets. She can do one in about 3 evenings sitting in front of the TV. She typically uses synthetic yarns, but I had her make me a stocking cap from wool on a round loom last year and it turned out great!

Finding a loom to make a blanket of adequate width might be a challenge, especially if you felt it later (felting would shrink your blanket, right?) Anyway, making a wool blanket at home in a few evenings would be very doable with a loom.

[DylanC]

I have used a wool blanket inside my hammock more than once to lay on when my UQ has not been enough.

...

I use the US Army (VietNam Era) wool blankets.

I've done this as well. I use the blanket I was issued maybe 10 years ago, but the tag says it was made in 1945 or something crazy like that. They were still 100% wool back then. Newer blankets are a blend, I believe. I folded it into thirds so it was a bit thicker and kept most of the material under my body where it was needed. Because the wool is fairly dense, compression under body weight is less of an issue and it maintains much of its insulating performance. I think I used this at 50 deg. F or so and was comfortable. I was using a sleeping bag with a waterproof shell as well. Placing the folded blanket between the shell and sleeping bag helped keep everything in place through the night.

[Stogie Bum]

Yannick, any update on the Wool underquilt project?