I have to thank Hammock_Engineer for his fantastic tutorial on down underquilts. I had no sewing experience before I decided to make my own to compliment my No Sniveller. I borrowed a sewing machine, sewed two stuff sacks for practice and launched into it.
I built it to have 3" baffles with just over 16 oz of 800 fill down. The fabric is Momentum 90 from Thru-hiker and outside is grey and the inside is black. Aside from a few cosmetic mistakes, it came out really well. I made only one major mistake late in the game as I was sewing the side seams where the draw cords are. Because the baffles were so stuffed, the fabric bunched up and under my needle as I sewed. I wound up sewing the edge seam right through the middle of the bottom baffle! The sudden appearance of down should have been a dead giveaway but, did I mention that I had never done this before? That took me an hour and a half to undo. Luckily, the fabric seems to have healed itself and I can barely tell.
I followed the directions almost exactly with one small modification to the suspension loops and draw string channel. Instead of a square edge at the corner, I made it on a diagonal which I felt would allow the quilt to hang a bit better.
All in all, I probably spent 10 to 15 hours on the quilt which was a significant investment of time but I really had fun. I have enough material for a second quilt and the next one will be a 2” baffle with 10 oz of down.
You can find my pictures here and a backyard test report here.
FreeTheWeasel
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