integrated underquilt

**3club** · 06-05-2011, 23:28

Yay, I think I figured it out! lol

http://www.hammockforums.net/gallery...ock_846333.jpg

Many of the other designs I've seen have the baffles going longways, but the problem is that you really never know how much it will stretch. I figured that making them go the other way allows more flexibility.

It's baggier that I would have preferred. Had I taken the time to maybe do one every two inches or so, the underquilt could have been kept a more consistent distance from the bed, forcing more of the down further up on the sides.

Anyway, I've found it quite adequate for the last five years. In the summer I don't need any sleeping bag or top quilt at all, just shorts and tshirt, 60 degrees, and I'm good. In cooler weather, sweatshirt and pants are good down to about 50 degrees. If it gets into the 40s, I'll use some type of topquilt. But for most camping trips, the integrated underquilt means I don't have to carry any type of other insulation.

**NewtonGT** · 06-06-2011, 00:23

looks pretty cool man

WV · 06-06-2011, 07:01

One thing I did to get a shaped bottom layer that matched the hammock as it stretches was very tedious, but it worked well. With the hammock occupied, I lay on the ground under it and drew triangles with chalk on the underside to get the shape. I measured each line

and used the data to make paper copies of all the triangles, which I taped together to get a pattern. (I only taped edges that would let the pattern lie flat, so it produced a number of separate patterns that fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces on a curved surface.) Then I enlarged each piece so it would leave space between the hammock and the outer shell, transferred the shapes to fabric, and sewed it up. This works, but don't do it! You will go crazy.

Recently I discovered another way to match the curved shape of a stretched hammock. I was experimenting with 1/8" thick floor underlayment as an insulating layer in a double layer hammock. (I wasn't happy with it as an insulator. It took several layers + a 3/4 length ccf pad to keep me warm, and then I had condensation issues - cold and clammy underneath in the morning.) When I took the underlayment out from between the hammock layers, all the pleats that had been pressed into it by my weight remained, and it sat there like a 3-D model of the occupied hammock. I could cut darts that match each of the pleats, increase the size some, and have a pattern for an insulated hammock bottom layer. I think it would work well for making a shaped underquilt, too.

Another thing I tried that I will definitely use again is making baffles that are sewn to the bottom layer, but not to the hammock top. Put a 3/32" bungee in a tube along the top edge of each baffle to hold it in place against the underside of the hammock top. The width of the baffles will keep the insulation in an even layer under the hammock. I use mini-toggles at the edge of the hammock to adjust the tension in the bungees. You can loosen them up and shift the down, like a karo step quilt if you need to.

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing to excess."
- me