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  1. #1
    Boothill's Avatar
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    Down Top and Bottom Quilt DIY Inexpensively

    i just want to add a strong testimonial out there for people who may be thinking about getting/making a TQ or UQ and are currently using a sleeping bag and pad set-up

    DO IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    the TQ/UQ is the way to go, so much more comfortable and easy, i can't even express in words how much better it is

    and this is the best part, if you have a sewing machine you can make them yourself (and this is coming from someone that 6 months ago had never used a sewing machine and had no experience making gear) and you can do it pretty dang cheaply compared to buying a TQ/UQ

    the gf and i made ourselves each a TQ and a UQ for about $165.00 total for all 4 pieces of gear, that's only $41.25 for each quilt, of course you have to add your time into that but what else do you have to do and the satisfaction of knowing you made it yourself is very gratifying

    we had about $75.00 in fabric 1.1oz ripstop from backwood daydreamer

    about $80.00 dollars in 800 fill power down, we bought 2 king sized bloomingdales pillows off of ebay and got 54 ounces of down out of the 2 pillows combined, worked out to about $1.50 per ounce , i watched ebay for about a month to find a good deal on the down pillows though

    i'm certainly no expert on down by any means, but the down from these pillows really worked good and there were virtually no feather at all in them





    and about $10.00 for hardware

    we both made karo step TQ's, i had made my UQ a couple months before we made my TQ and both her TQ and UQ, and i was even less experienced at sewing so for my UQ i just made a sewn through tube design but it works fine and was super easy to make

    the karo step quilts were a bit harder but nothing that anybody on here couldn't do if you just take your time and do some research

    we started out by laying the baffle pattern out on some cardboard, the cardboard we used was perfectly square which certainly helped, we used a black felt tip marker to make lines, the particular fabric we used you could see the lines through it when you laid the fabric on top so that made marking the baffle position easy

    here's my pattern, the center line is just a point of reference and i marked on that line where the baffles went, i did a 14" square with 8" long x 6" high baffles, wanted to give myself plenty of height so that the sewing would be easier, they were only about 4" high when i was done sewing

    one thing for marking out your baffle position i found made it super easy, was to cut out a cardboard square the same size you are going to use for your baffle size and just mark your length lines on that and just use that to mark the whole pattern instead of trying to measure each baffle out with a ruler, the example for me was, i cut a 14" square and marked out the 8" baffle length in the appropriate places on it and then just laid it on the cardboard and marked and the move it up to the top line i had just made and marked everything again, etc.



    her pattern, she used 12" square with 6" long x 5" high baffles in hers



    here is my finished TQ we got to sewing and kind of forgot to take some more pictures of the process, it has about 14oz of down in it and i ended up with about 3.5" to 4" of loft, i made my TQ pretty big, i'm 6'3" and wanted it so i could pull it completely over my head if i wanted to, it measures 90"x52" when it was completed



    here's a picture of the footbox, i just made a channel at the bottom and ran some shockcord through it and then added 5 snaps about 5" apart to close it up



    and here is a picture of my UQ that i made witht he sewn through tube baffles, this was super easy to make, it has about 14oz of down and about 4" of loft



    to add the down to each of the quilts we set up my 4 man tent in the living room, closed it up completely and put everything inside of that with the vacuum cleaner just outside the door so we could round up all the loose down when we were done stuffing and it wouldn't get all over the house, this is a method i highly recommend

    the way we made the quilts i'm sure has some flaws, but we just took them to the rocky mountains for 4 night where it got into the low 40"s each night and we both stayed nice and warm, so they work for us

    guess the whole point of this tread is to encourage those of you out there that are thinking about getting or making yourself a TQ or UQ to do just that, it made the whole experience of sleeping in a hammock so much more enjoyable and easy than the sleeping bag and pad method......and this show's that if you want to do it yourself that you can do it fairly inexpensively

    boot
    The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. ~Bill Watterson

  2. #2
    richtorfla's Avatar
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    They look nice and some excellent tips especially setting up the tent to keep the down in a confined space!

  3. #3
    Senior Member raiffnuke's Avatar
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    Nice work! Thanks for the advise and sharing your projects.

  4. #4
    Senior Member
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    Any suggestions on Ebay search terms to find down as opposed to down/feather combo?

    Also, what size pillow and how many pillows did you need to get enuf fill?

  5. #5
    Boothill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by richtorfla View Post
    They look nice and some excellent tips especially setting up the tent to keep the down in a confined space!
    it's pretty much a must to have some place that is free from drafts......that stuff just goes eveywhere, your nose will itch for a week

    Quote Originally Posted by raiffnuke View Post
    Nice work! Thanks for the advise and sharing your projects.
    yw, although i'm sure not quite as light as your's, that HG cuben has got to be sweeeeeet!

    Quote Originally Posted by wwk10 View Post
    Any suggestions on Ebay search terms to find down as opposed to down/feather combo?

    Also, what size pillow and how many pillows did you need to get enuf fill?
    seach for "my luxe" we bought 2 king sized pillows that were being sold together, right now there doesn't look like there are any of these going cheap, but keep looking, that's what i did and then those 2 came up and we were able to get them for $80.00 for both, we still have about 4oz left

    boot
    The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. ~Bill Watterson

  6. #6
    Member hang loose's Avatar
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    Awesome gear, and great idea on the Bloomingdales pillows. I want both a TQ and UQ so bad. Your encouraging words push me closer in the DIY direction for those two pieces.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Pipsissewa's Avatar
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    Inspirational!!
    "Pips"
    Mountains have a dreamy way
    Of folding up a noisy day
    In quiet covers, cool and gray.

    ---Leigh Buckner Hanes

    Surely, God could have made a better way to sleep.

    Surely, God never did.

  8. #8
    Senior Member sclittlefield's Avatar
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    Really nice looking quilts! Very thrifty!
    DIY Gear Supply - Your source for DIY outdoor gear.

  9. #9
    Member Sparrow's Avatar
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    Sweet, very nice. Gonna have to try this myself once my material gets here.
    Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

  10. #10
    Boothill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hang loose View Post
    Awesome gear, and great idea on the Bloomingdales pillows. I want both a TQ and UQ so bad. Your encouraging words push me closer in the DIY direction for those two pieces.
    it seemed like a bit of a daunting project when it was in the planning stages, but was actually easier than i was anticipating, good luck with yours

    Quote Originally Posted by Pipsissewa View Post
    Inspirational!!
    thx

    Quote Originally Posted by sclittlefield View Post
    Really nice looking quilts! Very thrifty!
    your responsible for some of that thriftiness....forgot to mention.....used the gutermann's mara 40 from your site too, thanks for helping keep the cost down of the project and having such good products and customer service....orders showed up extremely quick

    Quote Originally Posted by Sparrow View Post
    Sweet, very nice. Gonna have to try this myself once my material gets here.
    just get yourself a good plan of attack and all will work out, good luck

    boot
    The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. ~Bill Watterson

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