A DIY baffle-free down quilt was made using recycled down, held in breathable and hydrophobic silver-coated polyester fabric.
Introduction
I regularly sleep under a very old, secondhand commercial down quilt. The quilt had eight longitudinal tubes (~200mm wide) formed in it by lines of stitching that held the two layers of fabric together (no box walls).
My one indisputable area of expertise is sleeping, so I am not a particularly restless sleeper. Nevertheless, the quilts’ dislodgement during the night is an issue that is addressed in my new baffle-free quilt by providing a tuck-tail to stabilise the quilt on the bed.
Additionally, while making previous quilts, I used a dry transfer of new down from the factory sack and into the individual box pockets of the new quilts. It was a tedious and messy process, performed while locked up in my bathroom with scales and a vacuum cleaner at hand to clean up the mess.
In this project, I explored a simple and efficient wet-down transfer method. The simple baffle-free quilt design means the filling process can be much simpler, without the need to fill separate compartments, as with my previous DIY quilts.
While the baffle-free quilt is for in-home domestic use, I hoped my findings might help to improve DIY winter camping quilts or sleep systems. My quilt renovations allowed me to test a baffle-free quilt design using polyester fabric for the first time. This fabric is hydrophobic, has high water vapour permeability and has a heat-reflecting silver coating as used in my most successful condensation and stretch-free tents. I had an abundance of this fabric on hand for the project.
If successful, the design may also work for a similar baffle-free camping quilt/sleeping systems that integrates the quilt with a high-performance down sleeping mat. The wet filling method serendipitously allowed me to observe how quickly the polyester fabric would allow the down to dry out to become a good insulator once more. A quilt that stays drier or can dry quickly after accidental wetting is a valuable attribute in winter backpacking gear.
First baffle-free quilt
The quilt design. The new, simple quilt casing was made from a single 3.0m strip of the 1.50m wide polyester fabric that weighed 340g (~75gsm). The fabric was cut from the roll using a hot knife to leave a fray-free edge. The strip was folded over so that the silver coating was on the outside and would become the inside after sewing together. A tuck-tail (0.4m long) was left on one end. Then the two sides and the end were sewn together, leaving a 0.25m opening at the end, to allow the quilt to be turned inside-out and to add the down fill through, using a large DIY funnel. The quilt was ~1.5m wide by 1.8m long.
The stitching was kept to a minimum so that in an outdoor version of the beffle-free quilt, there would be minimal opportunity for water entry through stitches. Later, I would also experiment with in situ waterproofing of the stitching thread with RTV silicone rubber for outdoor use. Eventually, I may try glued seams without any stitching.
Silver on inside or outside? I agonised about where to put the heat-reflective coating. The AI answer was : ….’For maximum heat retention, the single-sided silver (reflective) coating should face inward—towards your body. Radiant barriers reflect your body’s infrared heat back to you, and the coating must have a direct line-of-sight to the heat source to be effective.’ However, it is also known that a silver-polished teapot keeps the tea hotter than one with a dull surface because the silver surface radiates less heat.
Regardless of this equivocal information, I knew that my tents made with this fabric with silver on the outside made the tents much cooler in hot weather and also warmer in cold weather. Protection of the tent fabric from UV decay, as described in my post: Silver coated polyester and UV decay was the most compelling reason to put the silver on the outside. This argument does not hold for a quilt that would usually be protected from UV light.
I have also noticed that on my other active gear (bags, snow gaiters and pack covers) and rain umbrellas, the silver coating can slowly wear or rub off surfaces that have high wear and frequent skin contact.
Consequently, this was a compelling reason to put the silver coating on the inside of the quilt, where it would be protected. “In any case, retaining the heat in the down seems to be almost as good as reflecting body back. Retaining warm air in the down fill has wonderful benefits. The resulting higher temperature will help to expel more moisture from the down and on through the highly permeable and hydrophbic polyester fabric, and thus keep the fabric and down dry and free of frost. So, silver on the inside of the quilt was my choice.
Transferring the down to the quilt. I started by laying the quilt out on a sheet of plastic that was placed on my lawn. I doused the quilt with water. “Luckily, I had a brief shower of rain that helped to soak the quilt and the down within while I had a cup of tea. The quilt did look a sorry sight, a backpacker’s camping nightmare.” Next, I put the rather heavy quilt into my spin dryer and slowly increased the spin speed to remove most of the water, without shaking the laundry down. This left the quilt very deflated and uniformly damp. After the rain cleared, I put the old quilt out on a large plastic picnic table and started the down transfer.
I cut it open, one pocket at a time, and easily transferred the damp compressed down into a large cone that was inserted into the opening of the new quilt. For convenience, I sewed a temporary fabric loop near the filling opening on the quilt so the filling cone could be held into the filling hole. This meant that I could support/lift the cone plus quilt with one hand, while stuffing the down in with the other hand.
After stuffing with damp down, I sewed up the open section of the seam with a great heavy blob of down sitting beside the sewing machine. I had some misgivings about the clumpy nature of the transferred down and thought that it may never fluff up again. My concerns were soon dissipated as the new quilt always felt dry on the outside. It quickly started to dry inside my living room, on a cold and damp winter afternoon. I used periodic shaking of the quilt to break up the heavier clumps of down and got the feeling that success was almost inevitable.
To my delight, the quilt was dry and insulating enough to sleep under on the same winter’s night, but I did take a DIY 2L hot water bottle to bed with me as a precaution. Nevertheless, I am sure that my body heat helped most in the drying process. In the meantime, my body was blissfully unaware of the moisture that was permeating out through this amazing hydrophobic, waterproof, yet vapour-permeable fabric.
I was not totally surprised by this rapid drying of the quilt while sleeping beneath it. I have observed similar rapid drying of down-filled puffer jackets after they have been water-soaked by soft snow, while two of us were having too much fun skiing in heavy falling snow on slopes that were near to our camp. The polyester puffer dried quickly, while the nylon one (mine) took all night to dry under the same conditions. Similarly, my DIY polyester tents stay much drier than equivalent ones made from hydrophilic silnyon. Even ice shakes off easily.
This drying property of a down quilt made of hydrophobic and highly permeable polyester fabric should be a boon for DIY adventure gear that may accidentally get wet.
The baffle-free quilt performance
Quilt insulation. The quilt provided great insulation that was superior to the original quilt. This was not surprising as there were no longer parts of the quilt along the many seams with zero down thickness.
Down distribution. The baffle-free design maintained a good distribution of down over the entire quilt, with minimal effort. Any natural clumping in parts of the quilt did not seem to create inadequate insulation in the other parts of it. Additionally, it was easy to redistribute the down in seconds, if required, as demonstrated in this little video.
I think part of the success of this design depends on the quilt having only a short ‘overhang’ at the sides of the bed, so that the quilt does not sag and allow the down fill to gravitate downwards. “In other words, a short overhang is too short to hang down.”
Stable location of the quilt on the bed. The 0.4m tuck tail at the foot of the quilt helped to hold the quilt in place when tucked under the mattress. It made a big improvement on the quilt from which it was made. Using the tuck-tail meant that the quilt was stable at the foot of the bed. The device also allowed easy realignment elsewhere by applying gentle tension to either side of the quilt.
Possible improvement to the quilt. A slightly longer quilt would provide better shoulder coverage, given that the tuck-tail is anchoring the quilt at the foot of the bed. A longer tuck-tail would be better for beds with thicker mattresses. Adding a friction strip to the slippery polyester tail would greatly improve its grip under the mattress.
Given the success of the stabilising effect of the bottom-end tuck-tail device, a similar side-tuck strip on one side of the quilt, just below the shoulder height, could further improve stability with very little extra effort. A single side-tuck strip, on one side, could be swapped from side to side by flipping the quilt, depending on which side of the bed is used for entry.
Although the polyester fabric is exceptionally permeable to water vapour, its very tight weave makes it very slow for it to inflate during deployment or compress during packup. “It took ages to pack the poyster quilt up to take it to its new home. Even then, I needed to use an oversized bag.” This property may be OK for domestic use, but it would be tedious if used for touring/backpacking camping (in boots or on skis), when the camp is often shifted each morning. Incorporation of a soft inflation tube to a downproof and highly air-permeable membrane may address these slow inflation/deflation issues.
Second baffle-free quilt
Another old faithful worn out quilt. The second quilt to be renovated was stitched with a square grid of through stitching at 350-400 mm centres. The lines of stitches were discontinued for about 250mm where they would have otherwise intersected the other stitch lines. This stitch pattern allowed the interchange of down throughout the whole quilt.
Many of these lines of stitches had failed. It was slowly becoming a baffled-free quilt. The failures did not seem to diminish the quilt’s insulating properties. The loft became much higher where the stitches had failed, and the insulation was probably improved. Despite several repairs, both faithful old japara quilts had been leaking fine down. It was time for a major renovation, or I risked expulsion from both bedrooms.
The second new quilt was made as for the first one, but the fabric used was a similar (red) polyester without silver coating. It would be used to evaluate the possible improvements that were indicated by the testing of the first baffle-free quilt. The quilt length was increased by o.1m to 1.9m. Similarly, the tuck tail was increased to 0.5m. Also, a 0.5m tuck-tail near the top of the quilt was added to provide further stability to the quilt on the upper body. Both tuck-tails had rubber mesh sewn on their ends to increase the holding friction under the mattress.
To address the issue of slow entry or removal of air through the tightly woven polyester fabric, I added an air entry/exit tube that is embedded in the quilt. It runs from one end of the quilt to the other with a little bit of ‘slack’, so that it will stay stretched out and not easily detach. The inner portion of this tube was made of cotton ticking, which has high air permeability and is downproof. As it was being sewn together, it was stuffed with polyester fibre to improve air transmission. Some of the fibre was sewn into the seam to prevent its migration along the tube. The portion of the tube that is externalised by passing through the top end of the quilt was made of polyester fabric (without fibre fill) so that it could be glued to the polyester quilt in the transition zone. The other end of the tube that attaches to the quilts’ bottom seam has a tab of polyester fabric attached so that it can be neatly anchored within the seam at the top of the quilt.
Transferring the down to the quilt. The down transfer for this second quilt was done a little differently to make it simpler. Instead of wetting the quilt outside on my lawn, I did it in the washing machine, where it would also be spin-dried. I added a small amount of dishwashing detergent to the water to speed the thorough wetting process.
This new process was very quick, but I think my growing confidence encouraged me to spin the quilt a little too fast. This resulted in the down being somewhat drier than with the previous transfer. The less moist down started fluffing up during the transfer process. Nevertheless, the transfer went OK with minimal mess and very little loss.
As I cut the old quilt open, I discovered that most of the quilting stitch lines actually were connected to cloth webs that were ~20mm wide. However, some of the stitch lines were simply sewn directly through to the other side. “So I think my error in the original description can be forgiven.”
An upside of the faster spin-drying was that the down in this quilt was off to a better start in its drying process. “As I handled the down, it had a dryish, even warm feel already despite the dampness.” The hefty blob of damp down is shown in the photo below before it was spread out as a thin layer to dry in its new hydrophobic polyester casing that is highly permeable to water vapour. At no stage did the outside of the newly filled quilt feel wet.
As for the previously renovated quilt, this one also dried and lofted while I slept under it. The insulation was adequate for a winter’s night. I could tell that the loft was improving as my body heat slowly dried out the down.
The quilt was delightfully warm on the evening after the drying of the down had started. However, after the second night, the loft and the natural even distribution of the down was much better. This probably indicates that further drying of the down was happening after the first night.
Conclusion
The leaky old down quilts were transformed into new functional quilts with no hint of down leakage. The absence of baffles enhanced loft, made sewing and down filling easy and improved the sleeping functionality and warmth of the quilt.
The addition of the tuck tails to the bottom and one side of the quilt made the location of the quilt quite stable. The rubber mesh devices on the longer tuck-tails provided the otherwise slippery tails with enough holding force to make these devices work well.
The experimental use of polyester fabric (hydrophobic, water-resistant, and water vapour permeable) for the quilt casing was successful. It should also be very functional for DIY outdoor sleep systems. The benefit of the silver coating on the fabric was not obvious. I expect that it may require harsh winter camping conditions to reveal the benefit. In any case, I think it can do no harm.
The noisiness of the polyester fabric does not bother me now, after many sleeps under these quilts. However, my family have commissioned me to renovate two more quilts for two trendy ‘day-beds’ in a new house. These will have a very similar design, but will be made from much softer ripstop nylon that has been tastefully selected from Target, in just-right matching colours. I think this sounds like a strong endorsement of the baffle-free quilt.
