This was definitely the most complicated thing I've ever done on a sewing machine. Especially the winter quilt. I did a down UQ about ten years ago, and I think it took me that long to talk myself into working with down again.
Made from HyperD. The summer quilt has 1" baffles and a semicircular "cap" at the end for kinda tucking feet into while being easy to kick aside. The winter quilt has 2.5" baffles and a sewn in foot box.
I use clew suspension on all my UQs (I've done a couple of wool ones for my indoor sleeping hammocks). On this one I tried out a lozenge shape to save weight since I always sleep feet right, and since you can do that sort of thing with clew suspension. I forgot to account for shrinkage and ended up with insufficient coverage on my right shoulder and left knee (in figure4 pose) and had to add extra sections after the fact, which was a pain in the spleen.
Down was reclaimed from a few different bags, ranging from somebody's 900fp project I got cheap, to what was probably a top-of-the-line bag thirty years ago, to a cheapie with a bunch of feathers in it. This last one I collected down from by dumping the feather/down mix into a tub, agitating it to get the down to drift into the air, then sniping it with my vacuum cleaner with noseeum over the end. If I were going to do it again I'd set up an indoor tent of some sort and probably devise some contraption for sorting down from feathers by cyclonic action. I didn't bother weighing out down; just filled the chambers, pinned them shut, gave them a shake and some time to loft and then added more where needed.
I'm probably forgetting a bunch of info. Even though I'm super happy with how they turned out, there's no way I'm doing this again for at least another ten years.
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Originally Posted by slugbait
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