I turned a blunder into an interesting jacket. I had originally made a primaloft pullover jacket based on an adjusted thru-hiker.com Kinsman jacket from gray M50. I washed this jacket in a washing machine. Even though I have done this with other primaloft MYOG items this jacket got wound around the agitator and the spin cycle left the inner primaloft shredded into clumps. I was close to throwing the jacket out when I got the idea to open the jacket up and see if I could redistribute the primaloft and sew it into mini chambers like a Patagonia Nano puff. Unfortunately the primaloft was too shredded. Since I have wanted to make a medium weight down jacket to use in cold temps I worked carefully to remove all the primaloft then sewed chambers for down and stuffed the jacket.
Here is a picture of the finished jacket. It has a double layer loft of of 2.75".
LytW8 M50 Down Max Pullover
The new jacket I call the LytW8 Down Max Pullover. It is made from m50 fabric and stuffed with 3.5 oz of 900 fill power down. The jacket weighs 6.5 oz in total. I used it over the past 3 days over the AT in NC/TN and I can say it is much much warmer than my old Montbell down inner ever was.
Here is a picture of original jacket when it was primaloft.
For comparison, here is a picture of my first M50 down jacket that is stuffed with 2.25 oz of down and weighs 5.1 oz. This jacket I would say is only marginally warmer than a Montbell down inner.
What surprised me the most was that it was possible to open up the side seams of a kinsman and with careful planning it could be stuffed with down and then sewn back up.
Jamie
