I made 5 down bags this year (3 karo step quilts and 2 zip-together sleeping bags)

My friend and his GF wanted 30F sleeping bags that would zip together and create one big bag when they're camping together. From what I understand, nobody does this with down because there probably just isn't much demand…I'm thinking it's mostly because the shape requires more materials/weight. I tried to talk them into getting quilts but they weren't ready to make the jump.

Bag Specs:

Temp Rating: 30F (Green) and 22F (Blue) — Blue is for a woman so I'm thinking that should be close to 30F.
Size: 75" long, 56" wide (VERY tight hems on the sides as I was using the raw width of HyperD)
Down — 12.5oz (Green) and 14.5oz (Blue) of ~800FP down
Shells — 1oz HyperD
Loft — 1.5"/2.5" (Green) and 1.75"/2.25" (Blue)
(can update here if I'm missing something you guys want to know)

Warning: There's an odd progression of pictures…I had been working on them every few days for a few hours but then suddenly got really motivated and finished the blue/green bags in 3 days and completely forgot to take pictures.

I cut 2" baffles (1.5" height) for the green bag and 2.25" baffles (1.75" height) for the blue bag to give ratings of 30F and 25F respectively (the blue one is a womens' bag, hence the extra warmth).

Sewn the baffles every 4.5" on the grey, inner shells and 5" on the outer shells to provide (baffle height + 1") of loft.

These pictures show the finished shells prior to stuffing. With 2yds of grey I was worried they were going to be slightly too short at 72" (my friend is 5'11" and I think she's around 5'8"). I was able to extend the length out to 75" by leaving 8-10" of extra outer shell and folding it over (so the outer shell wraps around to become ~4-5" of inner shell). I think it gives a nice look too.

*****// This is where I really buckled down and worked my ass off and forgot to take pics *****

I suck and didn't take any pictures of the down stuffing…which is probably the most interesting part since I'm using a comforter. I was able to piggyback on the work of engineers/scientists and make a crude "eductor" out of PVC and attach it to my shop vac…this allowed me to simultaneously suck down out of the comforter, redirect the air flow, and blow the down into the shells. (I still have to finish up my wife's quilt so I'll take some pictures and maybe a video and upload to YouTube).

Finished:

I also made custom stuff sacks for them:

The final weights:

They seemed really happy with the weight but I was hoping for around 22oz and 24oz. Unfortunately, the zippers added more weight than I was expecting.

I was sent this pic after they got them:

Along with the two bags above, I made a quilt for myself and my wife.

Mine turned out to be 12.75oz finished and is 75" long with 2' of head (52") and foot (36") width before they taper.

I used 12/8 Karo boxes. and 7.75oz of down. The shell is Membrane 10D from RipstopByTheRoll.

I ended up just taking the full 3yd and folded it over and sewed around the edges before laying down my pattern. The shell finished out at 5oz w/ stitching, snaps and a cinch cord at each end so I'm pretty happy with that.

As of now, I'm packing this bag in a 5L dry sack/pillow…it was an impulse buy and weighs a heft 1.25oz (so 14oz packed) but is a multi-use item and acts as a pillow as well as a dry bag to protect the quilt…something like this but much lighter: http://hyaliteequipment.com/dry-bags/view/dry-sack

The remaining bag I made was a down quilt for my dad as a Christmas/Father's Day gift. It didn't share the down comforter like the ones above but used a down pillow off ebay as well:

It's a 30F rating using 2" baffles…It doesn't look the part but when laid out it's got nice fuffly squares. Finished weight was right around 18oz. I used a 9" karo baffle with 6" baffles. This does a really great job of keeping down in place but is a pain to sew (I learned from this and used the standard 12/9 for the bags that follow in my next post below).

Finished size is 75" long and 55"/38" at the head/foot with roughly 2 feet of each before they taper. It uses snaps and a cord that cinches to close up the footbox. There's also a cinch at the neck to prevent drafts.

In case you were paying attention…I'm missing a 5th bag. This is because I ran short on down when I was making my wife's bag so I put in an order for 2oz of down to finish it up.

I'm expecting that to arrive later this week and I'll post that one too.

This bag is identical to mine (orange quilt) but it uses a purple HyperD shell instead. That adds 2oz of weight (total will be ~14.75oz) but saves $15 in material costs.

Well done! That's a lot of sewing and stuffing. I just ordered some orange Membrane10 for a quilt I'm doing in a couple weeks. Any down leakage issues with the My Luxe down? I've used it a few times in the past and I think the fill power is accurate, but it has a bit higher ratio of feathers which seemed to cause a little more leakage in the low denier fabrics. I've not used it with Membrane10 though.

Ryan

Ryan,

I'm liking it a lot so far and haven't had any issues yet with Membrane10 or HyperD. With My Luxe, I think that leaking is most likely to occur when compressing the down (pressure causes the bits to puncture) but I have compressed all 3 of the bags (two HyperD and 1 Membrane10) quite a bit and haven't noticed any leakage as of yet. The Membrane hasn't been out in the field yet but it's gotten (un)packed close to a dozen times now without any issues.

In comparison, I made a 0-10F bag with My Luxe down and Nobul1 a few years ago. That one leaked but it seems to have gotten better over time and was never anything I couldn't live it. To be fair, I stored it in a compression sack a few times and since using a stuff sack the leaking has lessened quite a bit.

Membrane10 really reminds me of the Nobul fabrics in regards to hand/feel and weight. The Membrane10 feels slightly more durable but that's 100% a gut feeling and probably comes from it being less transparent (possibly orange vs grey dye transparency as well…they're both 10D).

As of now, Membrane10 is my favorite UL material for breathable materials…it seems equal to competitors in almost any area of "performance" but the others either lack color options or are priced higher. I have yet to try Argon67 but I want to use it for my next purchase to compare.

Really like all of those projects! I did a sewn through karo step quilt recently with Membrane10 and will use it again, nice stuff.