Before I begin, I just want to thank everyone for their help and input. This was the first time i've ever made anything using a sewing machine and although I found it challenging, and at times down right frustrating, I enjoyed making it. I spent quite a long time working on this quilt and I am very happy with how it turned out. The final test is to see if it actually works.
I want to give a special thanks to Kevin. His youtube videos on quilt making are what I designed my quilt from. https://www.youtube.com/user/kduvey
Joe Brewer also gets a thanks from me as well. https://www.youtube.com/user/Biophthera
Grapenut's video on his karo step quilt I found very helpful as well. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx1...2z2ZUVbR-A-7yA
The quilt:
I wanted to make a ground quilt that would be 20oz or less and possibly get me to around 20 degress Fahrenheit. My goal is to keep my base pack weight under 9lbs; <3lbs pack, <3lbs Shelter, & <3lbs sleeping system. The quilt is a karo step design made of Argon 90 and filled with 800 fill duck down. Its final weight is 21oz, just an ounce over my original goal. The cut and hemmed fabric weight is about 6.7oz and is filled with about 14oz of down. The dimensions before I put in the taper were 75" x 56". My taper starts 30" from the bottom and trims down to 44" at the feet. I went with a sewn in foot box and I baffled and sewed a "plug" at the foot end. I sewed in a separate draw string channel at the top and used shock cord with cord locks. I have six tabs of grosgrain, three on each side, two are at the top with Kam snaps attached to them, the other four are spaced 12.5" & 25" from the top. I have a seventh grosgrain tab at the foot box as well. My baffle height is 1.75" but I added enough down required for 2.5" of volume.
Materials/tools:
- 3 yards x 58" Argon 90 in red (outside shell)
- 3 yards x 58" Argon 90 in black (inside shell)
- 15oz 800 fill duck down
- 1/8" shock cord
- 5/8" grosgrain
- 2.5" Noseeum mesh
- Kam snaps with tool
- Gutermann sew all thread (Mara 100)
- Microtex Sharp 70/10 needles
- Yard stick
- 12" ruler
- Multiple chalk pencils (a damp towel or licking your finger will work as an eraser)
- Blue painters tape
- Tailors measuring tape
- Really sharp scissors (for cutting fabric only)
- Lighter (the fabric can fray quite a bit)
- Fabric pins & paper clips (Before I pinned the fabric in preparation of sewing, I used paper clips to make sure everything line up first)
- Seam ripper
- Graph paper & calculator
- Poster board (I used this to make a stencil for cutting a circle)
- Singer 221 sewing machine
Last but not least, a whole lot of patience.
Math
I wanted a fairly roomy quilt that I could tuck my head into in case I got cold and to compensate for shrinkage. For the length of the quilt, I added 6" to my height, 5'9", which equaled to 75" long. As a side sleeper, I wanted to keep the quilt fairly wide. The Argon 90 comes 58" wide with 57" of it that is usable. I went with a half inch seam allowance on both the length and width which gave me a rough cut of 76" x 57". After the hem, my dimensions came to 75" from head to toe x 56" wide at the head and 44" wide at the feet. My taper starts 30" from the bottom.
Argon 90 is advertised as just under 1oz per square yard, to figure the weight of the fabric, I did the following: (76 x 57) x 2 / 1296 = 6.7oz
As for how much down I need, I needed to find the volume of my quilt: (75x56) x 2.5 / 800 = 13oz
I was able to shave 0.83oz by using a taper: [(30x6)x2 / 1296] + [(30x6)x2.5 / 800] = 0.83oz
Final weight on paper: (6.7 + 13) - 0.83 = 18.87oz This does not include baffle material, foot box plug, shock cord with cord locks, grosgrain and thread.
Making the cut:
I used a ping-pong table to lay my fabric on. I taped all around the fabrics perimeter to keep it taut. Using chalk pencils & my measuring tools, I drew the outline of the quilt plus all the baffle points. The rough cut measured 76" x 57" and after sewing the seams, the final dimensions came to 75" x 56" with a taper 30" from the bottom giving me a foot box width of 44". Although I read about it, I did not use a differential cut.
Karo step
My karo step pattern is 100% based off of Kevin's video: https://youtu.be/OB9xdHyO6m0 Since this is my first quilt, I figured, why reinvent the wheel. I sewed the baffles to the outside shell first, although time consuming, it was not very difficult. I just did one row at a time. I would lay the shell down, cut the baffles to the desired length, tape in place, sew the baffles, then wash rinse repeat for every row. Painters tape helped keep the baffles in place. Sewing the horizontal baffles to the inside shell was easy, sewing the vertical baffles to the inside shell was a pain in the ***. All the baffles are space 2" from the perimeter and have a 4" gap between each other at each intersection. Like previously stated, the baffle height is 1.75" but i added enough down for 2.5" of loft. From what ive read, baffle height and loft are two different things. When factoring for loft, I read that you are supposed to cut your baffles anywhere from 0.5" to 1" shorter than your desired loft. Hopefully I added enough down.
Foot box
To figure for the width of my foot box, I went with what Kevin did in his video:https://youtu.be/OB9xdHyO6m0 My shoe size is 11.5", I added 3.5" to my shoe size which gave me a diameter of 14" after hemming. With 14" being my diameter, I got a circumference of 43.98, I rounded up to 44". After I sewed my foot box together, the circumference came to about 42.5"; because I had enough fabric to play with, I went ahead and made a plug for the foot box using my original diameter of 14", it fit perfectly. To make the plug for the foot box, I made a compass using paracord and a pencil and drew an 15" diameter circle on a piece of poster board to make a stencil. Using the stencil, I traced out two circles on the excess black Argon and then cut the circles. Hemming the circles proved to be quite tricky. After searching this forum and the web for ideas on how to hem a circle, I found this video https://youtu.be/0h27ZzDKAB0 (hem starts at 4:08). The basting stitch used to gather the fabric worked flawlessly. Once I had my circles cut and hemmed, I sewed in baffles and sewed the two pieces together leaving a small gap to stuff the down in. With the quilt inside-out, I first used paper clips to hold the plug to the end of the foot box to make sure it lined up before pinning it in place prior to sewing. Hopefully this makes sense: With the quilt inside-out, i pinned the plug to the right side hem of the foot box. This way, when I turn the bag right side-out, the foot box and plug hems are on the inside of the quilt.
Draw cord channel
For the draw cord channel, I cut a length of scrap fabric the width of the shell at its widest before I hemmed the fabric. After I hemmed the outer shell, I hemmed the draw cord channel, folded it in half, and then sewed it to the top of the outer shell. This worked out better than I expected.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed making this quilt. It is my very first sewing project and I am quite pleased with the results. I will definitely make another quilt sometime in the near future. I want to thank everyone again for all their help. If anybody has any suggestions or sees something wrong with my build, please feel free to comment.
Ps. any tips for distributing the down? Ive been shaking the hell out of it and its slow going. That may be because of the 4" gaps between the baffles though.
Pictures:
Singer 221 circa 1951:
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Blue Print:
Quilt sketch.jpg
Inner & outer shells
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Baffles
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Draw cord channel
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Making the circle
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Before adding down
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The finished product
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