I will be sewing up my first UQ using 5" Climashield Apex in a few weeks and I have several questions about the construction and materials.

1. Using the 5" thick insulation, I have seen where several people talk about simply sewing it around the outer perimeter to capture it in the quilt. How thin does the 5" Apex compress and how well does it feed under the presser foot of a sewing machine? It just seems like a lot of material to try to cram through the sewing machine. I may be wrong about this.

2. Would it be plausible to capture the insulation to prevent it from shifting around by hand-stitching through the insulation in a number of spots all across the quilt? I'm thinking about stitching through just the inner fabric several times to get a good hold, mark the thread at 4.75" from this stitching, pressing down on the inner fabric/ins./outer fabric sandwich, pass the needle through all 3, line up the other side fabric with the mark on the thread and stitch the same as the other side. This will prevent compressing the insulation and losing the heat retention quality. I have not been able to find out what this kind of stitching is called. Think about a tufted leather ottoman, but not as severe.

3. What fabrics would you recommend using? I have enough 1.1 silnylon to do the entire UQ, but I am wondering if the inner fabric should be a breathable, not-treated material instead to prevent condensation problems.

4. I have seen many down UQ designs that are designed with a smaller inner fabric to establish a pre-curve in the quilt. Is that design element needed, or preferred, when making a non-baffled Climashield UQ?

I know that's a lot of stuff, but I just like to work some of this out before I start a project like this. Thank you for your answers.

SE