Short wearable extra quilt to extend the warmth of my regular quilt

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

Last weekend I did a trip where I was too hot at 2500′ and way too cold at 6000′. So I created an extra blanket that I can layer inside my quilt or wear stuffed into my wind shirt or rain jacket. I can forever leave the puffy jacket home.

It is comprised of a Costco quilt cut down to 8×8 squares. I removed all the threads going in one direction (which was surprisingly easy to do) and then using pins and basting stitches closed off areas I wanted to keep the down in while guiding all the rest of the down so that I could then shake all of it into the 8×8 square area. I cut off the extra empty area, rolled over the edges and also cut a hole in the middle for my head. There are ties to tie the hole shut when I use it as a blanket. It has about 2″ of loft, pretty tightly packed. It is maybe is a little overstuffed.

Here it is worn as a vest. There are ties on the side to tie it shut. I can wear it diagonal like a poncho, too.

Here it is stuffed in my windshirt. It looks a little ridiculous but not as ridiculous as trying to stuff my Jacks R Better wearable quilt into a windshirt.

I normally like to bring some fleece sleeves with me that I can use either as arm warmers or leg warmers or even pulled down over my feet as sort of sleeping socks. I can use them with this “vest” to keep my arms warm.

With this little extra blanket I can extend the range of either my 45 degree or my supposed 20 degree quilt. My 20 degree quilt is the one that was too cold the other night at 6000′. It was nowhere near 20 degrees that night, it was closer to 40.

It weighs just a hair over 10 ounces. By comparison my Golite ultra 20 is 19.5 oz and my JRB wearable 45 degree quilt is 15.9 oz. A patagonia down sweater weighs 12.45oz.

Since I normally will bring both my down quilts when I go on trips because I hate to be cold, I’m saving between 6 and 9 oz by bringing this instead of one of my down quilts and enjoying the dual use of it as a wearable puffy layer. Even though it only saves 2.5 ounces over a light down jacket, it’s way puffier and I never bring the down jacket anyway because never hike in a down jacket and I usually wear my JRB quilt if I’m going to sit around camp.

[R]

Brilliant!  I love the re-arranging of the Costco down.

A while back I made an Apex 2.5 quilt that zipped in two and formed a vest.  I added a second layer of insulation, 3’x3′ over the torso, which ends up in the vest.  I was addressing the issue of wearing the bulk of a poncho quilt around camp and the risk of water/dirt/damage.

This looks way easier, warmer than my vest, and doesn’t put any holes in the over quilt to let drafts through.

 

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I think some UL gear company should perfect this idea. Make it a bit more attractive to wear and market it as a way to handle trips where there is a wide range of altitudes and biomes. Or maybe it could be a vest by day and a child’s sleeping bag by night.

[David Thomas]

Diane, I like it a lot.  I’d imagine starting with a standard vest and then tweaking it to fill the head and arm holes when used as a quilt, but your approach of minor modifications to a quilt such that it can returned fully to quilt mode is, I think, superior.

It’s got me thinking that a very similar approach with a CCF pad (be it 1/8″ or 1/2″) could also create a vest with decent insulative properties, be a partial wind break and shed rain.

[todd]

Very nice Diane!  You’ll get good mileage out of that piece.

David, there’s an old thread on here that includes a guy who made a vest from a Ridgerest!  Looked like a ninja.

Ha!  Found it:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/17538/

There was so much creativity here years ago – Diane’s post brings some back!  I’ve brainstormed a similar idea but never came up with a “just right” concept.  I think yours is a winner Diane!

[Edward John M]

OK Why not use the left overs and make a warm hood to go with the poncho style downie?

CCF foam is still used as insulation by a few companies whose customers are deep water sailors, the U-VIC flotation/hypothermia jacket was one of them and Stormy Seas here offer it as an option in a few of their life jackets. It works very well as a vest and as knee pads too

[R]

Just the other day I stumbled across a pretty epic photo Diane posted of herself some time ago wearing a ccf pad as a torso wrap.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I didn’t need to make a down hood. I already have one.

[Author]

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