New Momentum in gear list

Aaron,

What is the crescent shaped slit in your half bag for? Also is the half bag for your upper or lower body?

Hi Aaron, great looking gear. Im getting ready to make my first sewing project, a synthetic quilt with Momentum and Climashied XP. My dumb question is which side of the Momentum is the top? The shiny side or the dull side? does one side feels better next to the skin? Thanks for any information you can pass on,
Wayne
aka Tortoise

Wayne,

The Shiny side of your momentum is the calandared side and is considered the wrong or bottom side. Good luck with your quilt.

Stuart, thanks for the information, Wayne.

Hey Stuart,
The crescent shape is for the head. The bottom half goes under your neck while the top covers your forehead.
This way the top of the bag wraps around your head, keeping you even warmer than a mummy.

The whole is also to stick your head through and wear as a vest.
The bag extends past your crotch about 8″ (while sleeping) and there is plenty of room to tuck the bag under your arms and hands.

With the combo of the insulated clothing and the bag, the 25* was a piece of cake.

Aaron,

Hey man, looks sweet! Did you have to adjust the LR pattern for the insulated pieces, or did you use the Kinsmen or other pattern for the puffy items?

Thanks, Jhaura

Hey Jhaura,
The L/R Pants and jacket are made to fit a medium sized body while also fitting over a few pieces of gear.

I have a smaller frame and want a fairly snug fit, so I had to take about 1 1/2" off from the sides of both the jacket and pant sides and about 1" off of the sleeves.

On the insulated pieces, the excess from the insulation made them fit perfect.

Now that I have about 12 items made from Momentum, I've found that although the durability is good, it doesn't take that much pressure from a sharp object to make a cut or even a longer tear in the fabric.

Nylon makes more of a puncture but takes a lot more pressure to do it.

For the weight of the Momentum, you can believe that this should be the case. Other than the case of the sharp object thing, the material is very durable.
I also has a better much better feel than any other U/L fabric (by far).

Hi Aaron,

I've been trying to figure out how your half-bag works. When wearing it as a tunic do you wrap it around your torso to the back? How does it close at the back? Or is the back completely open? Do you use your insulated pants as the lower half of the sleeping system? And does the half-bag in sleeping mode just lie on top of you, or is it also wrapped around your torso?

Thanks.

Miguel

Aaron,

The head/neck opening in your half bag is excellent!

– sam_h

I've been wanting to make a pair of insulated pants from the liberty ridge pattern as well. I haven't bought the materials yet but I was wondering if you had any advice. Where there any troubles adapting the pattern to be insulated? What insulation did you use? Did you include the leg zips? Thanks.

Hey Miguel,
Yes, it seems like your tring to put a square peg into a round hole.
If you see it, you understand it.
I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it long before.
It’s not as complicated as it seems, (I hope the pics help).
I have a small snap at the waist that goes all the way around you.
The rest of your back is open, but your pack fills in that area.
I have the insulated bottoms on over the wind pant, but that’s it.
As long as your feet and the rest of your body are warm, what little section of your legs is left doesn’t get very cold.
__________________________________________________________

Thomas,
The L/R pants were a lot easier to make than the jacket.
Sewing the first stitching row of the 2 pieces together is the only tough part because you want to catch just the very edge of the insulation so that you don’t have a huge round seam. If you do have the round seam, sewing them together is the real pain.
All in all, it’s just like sewing a standard pant, (very easy).

Thanks Aaron, makes a lot of sense now. And a lot of food for thought.

But, I've got to say it, you really look like a male elephant seal, snout and all. Or should I say, you look like you've been eaten by a male elephant seal!

Aaron-

Could you go into a bit more detail about the pants. I've in the process of making a pair myself and wonding about the best way to seam them.

Did you sew the insulation to the inner pant then sew a shell pant to go over and seam at the wast?

I'm going to be using a serger and just can't seem to figer the best way to do it. I can see from your pictures if you did french seams down the outside.

thanks

Joe F

Hey Joe,
I am not the one to really ask about sewing. These projects are the first clothing ones I have ever attempted and they are (semi crude).
I just cut them so they fit good and chop it up from there until the finished project comes out.

I wouldn't even recommend using french seams. I was just trying to make it clean, but it made it harder.

My best advice for you is to ask someone else.
I can talk to you about making a quilt all day but not clothing items.

Not a problem. I'll speak with Ayce who sells the kit. I had emailed with him about it but didn't see it as a problem at the time.

Now with everything infront of me. . . I'm like wow. what's the best way to do this, correct the first time. I won't be doing french seems either most likely use a serger. It kick ass for things like this.

JFF

Joe,

I've made the Liberty insulated jacket and a pair of insulated pants using the shell pattern. You're right, for the pants, serging the insulation to the inside layer just like the jacket is done would be the way to go, effectively doing a French seam. The main thing to watch is to give yourself enough seam allowance for the two rows of stiching. I didn't on my first jacket and almost made it too snug. Good luck with your project. AYCE is usually great in answering your questions.

Bill T.

Bill,
Well said. I will have to do the same thing next time.
The pants will fit snug on your upper legs if you don't do this.
Unless you have a small framed body, make sure you size up one size.

So Bill, what did you use for the insulation and fabric?
How much did the garments weigh?

Bill-

I emailed Ayce and he agreed with my thinking.

I'm going to serge the insulation to the shell then use simple seams down both sides. Then sew liner with simple seams down sides. I'm going to using a 4 thread serger so I'll go back and most likely add a line of stiches in about 1/4 so it will be a bit stronger.

Now sew liner to shell at cuffs and pull through. You should now have no seams but the open end of the waist. To finish off just add waist belt roll over to inside of pants and seam. Ayce was saying just add a 3/4 piece of gross grain to cover the seam edgde and use for your button holes for the cord.

I was also thinking of using elastic cuffs like a jacket but now think I'll use Lycra binding it's easer to use, lighter and nicer when your sleeping.

As far as sizing your pattern up. Yes if your going to add french seams then you need to size up due to thickness but if serger you will save a bit of fabric so it shoudln't be needed unless they are a tight fit OK. But if this is your first time using this or any pattern it PAYS! to quicly make it out of cheap cotton to try on.

I'm using 6oz of primaloft sport.

Joe F

I am just curious. Wouldnt a down jacket with hood weigh less and be more of a double duty item then the half bag? Another reason would be that climing in and out of a bivy would be alot easier in a jacket versus a half bag i would assume…..food for thought

Hey Jeff,
Yes, you are absolutely correct about overall warmth.

However, I don't know of any hooded down jackets that weighs less than 8.2 ounces.
Besides those super light down jackets hoods don't even compare to the loft and warmth I get using the 1/2 bag.

Most people that would go this route would take a hoodless down jacket, and purchase a 3 oz down hood like feathered friends or Nunatak make.
With something like a 14 oz Nunitak Arc edge and a Montbell U/L Inner Down Jacket you have a total of 23.2 ounces.
My Jacket-1/2 bag combo weighs 20.8 ounces.

What I also get out of the combo is the ability to use the clothing in pouring rain without worrying about too much warmth or compression loss.

I am also not going to bring anything other than a wind jacket and this jacket for what ever the elements have to offer.
Mainly for that reason alone I will take the Synthetic insulation jacket over the down one any day.

My U/L list on trips will soon contain an event jacket and I will go the U/L down jacket way while converting my 1/2 bag into a quilt.
Along with the above, I will use a Momentum bivy and a Cuben tarp.
I will only use the synthetic top and bottom with the above if I need to push down to about 20* and need that clothing to hike in.
If I'm pushing all night like I am going to be I will still use my 1/2 bag sythetic jacket combo.

Aaron,

It is obvious that you have done your homework. I really like the half bag idea, but was curious as to why you where using it over jackets and a bivy. For what you have made this stuff for and your intentions of record breaking it is all the more important to save 3 ounces. If it was for just a normal thru hike I personaly would carry the extra 3 ounces for the ease of sleeping in a bivy. In any regard I am really digging your gear and its really making the light go off in my head. I was just on the JMT this last weekend out of tuolumne meadows and it is still really soggy and alot of stream passes

Hi. Are you still using this bag or you have come up with something else?

I like the concept of using pack as insulation for the back. Its a great idea. Do you unstuff your bottom bag inside your pack for pack insulation?