[pct-l] sleeping quilt

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

Monty and I made a two person sleeping quilt out of an thin single sleeping
bag, which we fell heir to, as it was an early MSR experiment when
polarguard first came out.  They just gave it to us.  it was a single 1
inch layer of polarguard, unquilted and covered by thin ripstop. 

This is how we converted it from a single sleeping bag to a top quilt for
two people: we opened a side seam all the way to the foot.  we laid it
flat, and then we sewed a bottom sheet of thin ripstop(uncoated) to both
edges.  Included in the edge seam was a tab with pieces of velcro the
length of our blue foam pads.  (We also put in a short zipper on one side
of about 24 inches).  Then we sewed (by hand) velcro along the bottom
outside edges of both of our two blue foam pads to attach the edges of the
sleeping quilt to the foam pads.  We also sewed a tab with velcro on the
inside edge of one of the pads and the corresponding velcro on the other so
that we could velcro the two pads together.  The whole thing minus the pads
weighted 3 lbs.  We used it happily for more than 20 years, and were rarely
cold unless it was down around 20 degrees or a heavy dew.  you could
probably just use adhesive velcro, it wasn't available when we made this
set up. We were in a couple bad rain storms during bushwacks, and on two
occaisions we wrung water out of the bag before crawling into it at night.(
we were wet but warm, I am not sure how cold the temperature would have to
be to have all that increased moisture balance out the warmth of the
insulation. I can't imagine doing that under freezing conditions)

It really depends how you sleep, whether this arrangement can work well for
you.  We both have tender lower backs and tend to draw our legs up into a
fetal position to keep our backs rounded.  Two people can not do this in
opposite directions - there simply is not enough room.  So we always faced
in the same direction (we called it spooning), and when one person would
turn, than the other would turn also.  We slept the same way at home so
that it was not a problem for us. the other thing is that on the bottom
from the calfs to feet there was no insulation at all because we only used
a 3/4 sleeping pad.  Sometimes I would just stuff my parka or the rope
under that area, but it never seemed to be a problem as long as I was
wearing something warm on my lower half.

the problem with a "quilt" is that you want to keep the edges down and you
feet in so that you do not constantly lose warm air to the outside.  I
think that Jardine uses the foot pocket to keep the quilt positioned over
two people, and to have it tucked around the feet which seals the bottom
edge, and both people have their foot space.  This is probable especially
important for two people of uneven height. The zipper thing mystified me as
well.  I thought that either he used a zipper to attach it to something
else(like a sleeping pad) or that the zipper was for foot ventilation
because he talked a lot about sleeping hot.

I have recently made a sleeping quilt for myself alone, which is a lot like
a top layer single sleeping bag which has a pocket for the sleeping pad. 
To increase warm and luxury, I made the whole inner lining out of fairly
heavy silk. It weighs 3 lbs. Because the sleeping pad does not conform to
the body and does not come up when the knees are pulled up, you need to be
fairly careful to have ample space inside to be comfortable.  By the way,
the bottom layer of our original 2 person quilt was very sheer material and
it seemed to snag a lot and got a tremendous amount of wear - I would use
at least a 2 oz/yd material .

Peace
Goforth


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