Most breathable down quilt shell fabric?

[Nick Smolinske]

So my latest quilt is a karo step with a good amount of down in it (I already forgot how much). Fabrics are membrane taffeta from RBTR on the inside, and robic 7d on the outside.

I’m really happy with the warmth per weight, but not so much with the comfort. I found that temperature regulation was a lot tougher to achieve than with my montbell down hugger, even though I was using a quilt.

I’m not sure how much of that was the robic versus the membrane, but it has definitely peaked my interest in making a quilt as breathable as possible.

I’ve done quite a bit of googling and found very little – the only promising lead is Nobul1, which has mixed reviews when it comes to it’s level of downproofing. But are there any options that come into play if I consider heavier fabrics (maybe up to 1.0oz per square yard?). Has anyone used calendered HyperD and can compare it to Membrane or to the Nobul1 in terms of breathability?

Also I’m assuming that nanoseeum is only downproof enough to keep down in baffles, not as a shell.

As a bonus, I may make this quilt on the bias with a slight zig-zag stitch on the baffle seam line, to get the same stretch effect as the Montbell bag.

[Jerry Adams]

I made a down quilt from Nobul1.  It leaked quite a bit of down for a while, but after a while not so bad.  I don’t think it leaked so much it made a difference.  I think it was just feathers with quills that were able to get through.

I just made one with Membrane 0.66.  I didn’t notice any down leakage.  Good on the one trip I’ve taken.  It has a little more down so it’s warmer.  I’ll use the new one when it’s really cold, the old one the rest of the time because it weighs a couple ounces less.  I didn’t notice any temperature regulation problems.

[Lester Moore]

About halfway down the following thread is a good subjective comparison of the breathability of several fabrics you might use in a quilt:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/breathable-wind-shirt-fabric/

[Nick Smolinske]

Thanks for posting that link, that thread hadn’t come up in my searches. Very interesting. So he reported the membrane10 as being more breathable than most. Maybe the robic is the main issue?

I’ve been thinking about this and I think the bigger problem might be that I added some extra down to that quilt before my last trip. I felt it needed it because I had noticed cold spots and wanted more overfill to avoid them, but I think I may sell it and go for a hybrid modular approach:

1. A new quilt, possibly membrane inside and out, with smaller baffle spacing and shorter baffles to avoid cold spots without having to add as much down. This would be designed to be good to about freezing for me or a bit warmer (I’m a rather cold sleeper).
2. A synthetic overbag made with Apex 2.5, 0.5oz nanoseeum for the inner layer and membrane for the outer. I’ve talked about this idea on the forum before but haven’t implemented it yet. Basically I love cowboy camping and refuse to set up a tarp unless it’s totally necessary, so extra dew protection from a layer of synthetic insulation is really nice on colder nights. Also doubles as a bivy for those “10% chance of sprinkles” forecasts that we get in the desert sometimes.

That way I would have more ability to adjust the level of insulation on the fly and the breathability might not be as important.

I still find the fabric of the montbell to be more breathable than any UL fabrics, but that might be because it’s higher denier and thus heavier. Even with the synthetic overbag I think this system will be slightly lighter than the montbell while providing more warmth and versatility.

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