How do you attach your quilt to your pad?

Are you cutting those bands to get them through the loops in your quilt, and then sewing them back together?

I do not cut the elastic bands (which seem like silicone, although not stated). I use four short pieces of 1/4" cord to attach the bands to four grosgrain loops that are sewn in to the edges of the quilt.

"When you are on your side, push the edge in front of you away, Squirm, and the shock cord will pull the quilt in to your back. Then pull the front edge back to you."

I originally thought you rotating from your back, with the quilt on top of you, to your side and bringing the quilt with you….exposing your back.

Now I think you are keeping the quilt on top, but rotating your body to your side and then performing your maneuver.

So there is no adjusting of the shock cord except in a general sense when you first attach the shock cord in your living room. When you are in the field, you don't adjust the length of the short cord with minilocs, you just squirm to get the shock cord to pull the "backside" of the quilt (while you are on your side) into you….that's the difficult part as you squirm, then you just use your hands to tuck in the "frontside" of the quilt (while you are on your side) in.

Correct? Now just to see if I'd be annoyed by sleeping one one single cord lock. I'd most likely locate it near the footbox, not the head end. Or…if I could find a way to tie off the shock cord (difficult as I recall) w/out one nd w/out using too much length of cord so as to negate the weight savings of the miniloc.

I must be strange. I don't use straps with my quilt. Too constricting and if I wanted that, I would have stuck with a mummy.

I bought the quilt for two reasons:

1 – lighter than similar bags

2 – can regulate heat in summer

During the summer I don't have a need to bring the extra cordage to tie things down.

But during the Spring/Fall I just might.

So I'm headed to craft stores, Home Depot, West Marine and anywhere else I can think of to find thin shock cord…but I'm wondering if there is a concept of going too thin?

I will be rolling around with this stuff underneath me and trying to replace my belt with it.

Looking at a North Face Hyvent rain hat, the shock cord measure 3/32nds. Seems like that would be about as thin as I'd go. How about you?

I would worry about going too thick with the shock cord, which could require too much force on the quilt to actually make it stretch usefully. I'd go with some thicker stuff for a [waste?] belt.

If your sources for buying shock cord by the foot don't pan out, you can often get round elastic (white in color) in the craft section of 'Mart kinds of stores; I've kept an eye out in my local HD/Lowes and haven't seen shock cord. The only place I've locally seen shock cord by the foot was at a Sport Chalet store (I don't remember if REI sells it).

EDIT: I like the hair band idea above. I suppose the traditional "flat" elastic would also work well, cut to length and with two loops sewn in…

I currently use 15 oz EMS zip off pants… they have loops for a belt.

But I'll be ditching these pants for something lighter that most likely has a sewn in drawn cord that would not be easy to take in and out while swapping it to my quilt. Oh well.

…from Zpacks. If it sucks I'll go thicker, but trying the thinest stuff for weight considerations first.

Pics and initial thoughts:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=49769&skip_to_post=422061

The shock cord certainly isn't too thin. haha. *gulp*

So I broke out the sewing machine to mod two items today.. My JRB Sierra Stealth Quilt (52in wide, 40F, 900FP down, sewing in footbox) and my Golite long sleeve shirts (http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=49031&skip_to_post=422681#422681)

I bought the machine a million years ago after making a Ray-Way tarp and sleeping bag. (I've never used it, thought back then I'd be some sort of MYOG guru, but in reality it was my Super Quilter Mother who was the star :p) And I didn't have any rust to shake off because I never learned how to use it in the first place. :p

I watched some video on threading a bobbin and played with the zig zag stitch on a scrap piece of cloth. When I was ready I laid out my goals:

– Drop overall weight

Weight from factory: 14.67oz to: 14.39oz.

– Cut off big JRB tags

Done.

-Remove carabiner used to bring quilt together as serape and still be able to fasten.

Used left over 1.25mm Zpacks Spectra line.

– Replace heavy flat nylon string and heavyish line locks used to cinch neck

Replaced w/ 1/16th in. shock cord from Zpacks. The webbing loops are very large, so I used a Zig-Zag stich to narrow down the webbing loops to pass the shock cord, but not allow the mini line locks to pass through. Shock cord runs through the neck with a Line lock on each side and continues continuously down through to the foot end.

– Figure out how to cinch back of quilt up when it gets colder.

Used the 1/16th in shock cord from Zpacks as one continuous piece through the quilt and up through the neck area. Using three line locks I was able individually adjust the neck area without affecting the rest of the shock cord through the quilt. I actually think the 1/16th in shock cord will work well. We'll see.

Many thanks to all the help/suggestions. I think I'm really going to enjoy my lightened quilt with improved functionality and Multi-use!

For the shock cord idea…worked like a charm and snugged the quilt up nice and snug underneath me on top of my pad. :)

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=50153