question about down quilts and baffles/sewn through

It may help some although probably not very much IMO. At 10oz of down, I think you would be fine at 30 deg as is with a sewn through design. My sewn through at the link has been golden at 40 deg with 1/3 less down spread out over a 79" finished length.

One tip to keep in mind with a Karo style quilt – You will have shrinkage both vertically & horizontally once the down is inserted. Typically quilts only have shrinkage vertically. Keep this in mind when doing your size calculations. (You probably have already thought of this). You can see mine shrank about 5" both directions. Yours will shrink more since using more down.

Ryan

Thanks Ryan! Your post was very helpful, especially with estimating how much shrink to expect. I figure, I'll start with 76-78" length and 56" width with the raw materials. I'm only 5'6 so the length should be fine. I'm hoping to keep the width around 52 like my synthetic quilt, so I'll have to fine tune that once I start the project.

I would sew baffles for anything colder than 40*

-Tim

As far as reducing sewing, something that i thought of was to take thin strips of Apex and fabric (the latter a little wider than the Apex), and use that "no sew" bonding (with iron) stuff to cover over the sewn through seams.

If i were to do this myself, i would only do some of the seams and just the ones over the core.

I thought of this, because i admit i'm still a little intimated by a lot of sewing for one project, as internal mesh baffles seem to involve.

I'm tempted to do this with some of the seams on the new 0 degree EE quilt we have, but am hesitant because i imagine it might damage some of the down, which i don't want to do.

Hey Justin, that's a pretty interesting idea! I do have some extra Apex sitting around. I might just suck it up and try going all out with the baffles, but we shall see. I do tend to want to just do things quick/lazy. Besides, I can do sewn through for the first one, and if I find its too cold even for my warm body, I could just order more fabric and recycle the down and try again. Double the MYOG fun.

How well so you think the no sew/bonding tape stuff will hold up if I used that to add the baffles instead of seeing baffles? Like, use nobul1 and the bonding tape to add the baffles instead of sewing. Then sew the bag shut.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? Will the adhesive have a hard time adhering to the cired fabric? I've seen it used successfully to shorten/seal sleeping pads (BA IAC, somewhere here on the forums),

I'm not too concerned with final weight, as it'll most surely be lighter than my synthetic quilt. I just want it more packable.

A couple of thoughts. DWR might be a problem, i might go with a fabric that has less of it, like Nobul 1 vs Nobul 2. Or Argon verse the M's. (unfortunately, i've heard, these tend to leak down more.., which is ultimately more important)

Two, i would take a hot, very slightly soapy wash cloth and vigorously rub the areas of the fabric you will be putting the bonding stuff on, then with another just water cloth wipe off any slight soap residue.

It won't take it all off of course, but will reduce it some. You can always add more later anyways.

I have some experience with the no sew bonding stuff, but not a lot. So far my experience is that if you do it right, this stuff is pretty strong. I've seen other folks here talk about it, and it being pretty strong and durable. But i have no long term experience with it so can't say for sure.

The worse that will happen, is that it will fall off eventually. Still won't really negatively affect the down quilt itself.

Don't use Nobul1 for down – leaks too much down – at least that's my experience with one batch

Dang, I was planning on using Nobl1 because of the weight and affordable price (although not much less than M90, but quite a bit lighter).

But mostly because of the .67oz weight… but I guess that does make it less "durable" overall.

Anybody else care to chime in on the downproofness of Nobul1, and what other alternatives I could use? I have Impetus 1.0 and M90V3 or M90 Tafetta next on the list.

Thoughts?

I've read a lot a threads saying the Nobul1 leeks quite a bit.
I've had really good luck with pertex quantum and momentum 90.

Anthony

Maybe Nobul2 is better?

On the website it says it's more downproof

May be off here, but i think the only difference between Nobul 1 and 2 is that the latter has a heavier DWR coating.

But at some point these wear off, and so wouldn't Nobul 2 eventually leak down as well?

I have some experience with M50, seems like it is a rather tight weave, doubt it would leak down even after the DWR wore off. But yes, pricier.

Just ordered a pound (minimum order amount) of 850FP water resistant down from Allied Feather. got their ordering page link from Allied Feather rep: http://www.downlinens.com/products/premium-washed-down

I'm going to go with Impetus 1.0 from DIY Gear Supply as i'll be getting the rest of the quilt items from them anyways.

Tim of EE quilts had some good things to say about impetus in past posts.

Total spent on down/quilt materials is $160. not too bad.

That's not bad at all, less than i would have thought. Is the 160 factoring the full price of the pound of down, or adjusted to how much you're actually going to use for this quilt?

The 160 is including the cost of down for the full 16oz order ($103.50).

If I factor just the 10oz I'll use, then the project comes under $125! Not too shabby.

I bought some iron on no sew tape from amazon and I'll just be using the impetus for the baffle material just to make things easier for me (as far as ordering, etc. Also tape won't work with mesh.)

I'm going to save the rest of the down to make booties, hoods, etc in the future. Or sell it, whatever.

I also posted the down deal in the Gear Deals section.

I made a karo baffled sleeping bag after making several straight baffled bags. I found the karo baffles more challenging because of the complexity involved. I think you should go for it and make a regular baffled quilt. Sewn-thru quilting is tough to do if the down is already in the quilt. Despite using a lot of pins, the fabric makes a lot of wrinkles underneath where you can't see it while you are sewing. A baffles quilt is a lot more efficient and the air leakage from sewn-thru quilting is not just from the needle holes but from the areas around the quilt lines where there is little insulation.

Since you just saved me $12 on my down (from gear deals post) I figured I'd share my experience today.

Just make the baffles. I started laying out material at 2pm after gathering stuff, and was done with 14 of 18 of the baffle sewing at 11pm, with lunch and dinner breaks. That includes:

Marking the material. Find the waxy chalk fabric marking things from a fabric place, use a straight edge and mark straight lines for your baffles, on the insides. I did 10 sections at 8 inches each (9 baffles). This chalk was great, forget tape/sharpie etc. If you can't find these, try a white grease pencil or something similar, it really works great, one swipe gives you a highly visible line that won't wipe off but isn't visible outside.

Cutting the baffles, straight edge and knife, this was simple. Its worth cutting these very well, I had a few that were ragged/wrinkled and they slow sewing down.

Tape a baffle on with segments of scotch tape. I used 3" long baffles, for a finished height of 2", this gave me 1/4" on the first sew, then some more slack on the second sew (you're manipulating both pieces of fabric, the extra helps). Then just trimmed the long side for a neat finish. The scotch tape works amazingly, I was able to peel it off and re-use it 3 times or so. I used 2" strips of tape every 6 inches or so, only needing to catch 1/8" of the netting. Not once did the tape peel/pull off, but removed easily when I wanted to. Tape the baffle past the line, and sew on your line, not thru the tape. I don't think I'd have finished it if I was trying to pin it, too tedious.

Sewing the baffles. Tape one, then sew one, repeat 18 times. Sewing is the easy part, its 10 minutes once you figure out how to roll up the fabric to keep it out of the way. I did a test with a single layer of noseum sewed to a piece of scrap nylon. I could not pull it apart, the thread broke first. Don't bother overlapping the netting like some articles suggest. I sewed 14 seams in 5 hours, with dinner, at a leisurely pace, taking time to make it look good. I've never sewed anything of note before this.

Tomorrow I will finish the last 4 baffles, sew around 3 edges, add a drawstring and loops. Last step will be to fill and finish sewing the 4th edge.

It'll take you an extra day to do the baffles. This quilt is worth the effort, you're already putting in a fair amount of effort, and with care it will last you years. Making a second one later will cost you another $50 and another 2 days.

I got the Pertex Quantum/M90T package without down from Thru-hiker, plenty of fabric, and really really nice. Two pieces 60×94 weighed 9.3oz, my final shell/baffle weight is 8.5oz, probably closer to 8 after trimming. I made it 59×84 with a taper starting at 40" down the side to a point 8" in. I made a drawing and a practice piece first.

I'm playing the stuffing amount by ear, the baffle of 2"- math I used was 12oz = 2.4" loft, so I reduced the baffle to 2 for a little overstuff. My target was 30 degrees, 16 oz total, but I'm closer to 19oz give or take an ounce depending on how much I end up stuffing.

For me, I'd rather have the quilt be enough on a shoulder season trip, than need to make/own another quilt that is only 10-20 degrees warmer, because I skimped on an ounce or two fill. And I can bring my synthetic as an overquilt to extend this to 99% of my trips.

Good luck on finishing your quilt!

I finished my quilt earlier this week; I used Karo step baffles. :o)

I used noseeum baffles and used Wonder Tape to keep the baffles in place while I sewed.

The Wonder Tape washes out in just one wash and it was great to work with. I posted a MYOG post on my experience/thoughts.

It was a really fun project.

If I were to do it again, I'd try using the 15D argon that dutchwaregear.com carries. It's a bit heavier than the 10D argon, but it's only $8 a linear yard and available in more colors than the Impetus 1.0 that I used. Also, the 15D Argon comes in under an ounce per square yard.

Cool, glad to hear it, avoiding the baffles sounded like a bad idea. I looked for that tape but my local shop didn't have it so I used what I had, will probably order some for future. Now I'm bit with the bug, I'll move to clothing.

I'll have to look into that Argon in the future too. The Pertex Quantum I had seemed to be under an ounce. Willing to accept someone saying I did this wrong, but I can handle measuring. I had .93oz/yd 4.3-something sqyd weighing 4.05oz.

I've caught the bug big time. I finished making some wind pants the other day, using 1.6 oz 40D ripstop from DIY Gear supply. Came out to be 2.5 oz. Went with a more durable fabric as I often hike with running shorts + wind pants on chillier days and the more robust fabric should hold up better brushing up against things.

Ordered some 1.8oz 40D high thread count camo ripstop to make another, better cut/fit/sewn version.
Next on the list are some silnylon rain pants.

It's a great disease.

Also, your weight calculation looks right.

Next project will be a hat or maybe a vest, with the leftovers from this. Then who knows. 3oz windshirt? I have like 5 jackets. Will definitely buy a bunch of yards of 2nds and not worry about waste.

Sewed up the last 5 horizontal seams in an hour, movin' along. I'll make a fresh thread with photos when its done.

I figured I saved almost $300 sewing this thing up, using EE Enigma 20 in wide/long as size/price comparison, which for sure would be a nicer quilt, but not MY quilt.

You were talking about materials under 1oz so I thought it was worth mentioning thru-hiker weight appears high. They list the quantum as 1.1oz/sqyd, which it isn't, almost 20% overstated by my math. The M90T is just about that. Its fine, it's 1/2 oz difference for the whole quilt. It ends up weighing what it weighs!