Currently, we use two Mountain Hardwear Ultralamina 15 sleeping bags. Kyle seems to have an allergy to down, so we are limited to synthetic options. At the time we purchased the bags, they were the lightest option I could find (1.2 kg / 2.6 lbs each) and we were able to purchase one left-hand zip and one right-hand zip to enable us to zip them together. Overall they work well, but they are definitely heavier and bulkier than other options.

Camping in Denali 2017

Cowboy Camping at Guitar Lake along the JMT 2015

Synthetic insulation hasn’t had too much innovation in the last few years and current synthetic sleeping bags have comparable weights. There has been a decent amount of design innovation though – namely backpacking quilts are becoming more common as well as dedicated two-person sleeping bags and quilts being available. Unfortunately for us, all the two-person quilt options available to buy seem to be down (which is great for most people!), so I started looking into making a quilt and found the Ray Way 2 Person Quilt Kit. There are also a number of online suppliers that sell the materials on their own. I decided to go with the kit option because it would provide all the needed materials (no worries about ordering too little or too much fabric) and it came with instructions and a pattern. I’d say I’m pretty average at sewing (mostly just use the machine for patching holes in clothing or hemming items) and I really appreciated having instructions and a pattern to guide me.

There’s a number of options when ordering – I went with the Alpine Insulation and Dual Colours.

The first step is cutting everything out – you will need quite a bit of floor space for this, we had to move our coffee table into the bedroom and switch the orientation of our dining table to make enough room.

Cutting insulation

Cut sections of insulation

Basting the insulation to make it the appropriate length

After cutting everything out, you get to start sewing! I found it easier to use tape to hold things together rather the pins. The nylon is very slippery and it was tricky to get pins in the right spot.

Taping zipper to the top half of the quilt

Taping the felled seam on the gorget

Once everything is sewn (the zippers, gorget, and draft stoppers) it’s time to actually assemble the quilt stack and sew the insulation and nylon together. Since the stack is so thick, the instructions recommend using clothespins to secure everything.

You leave a small section at the bottom of each half to be able to flip it right side out. Then once it is flipped, make sure everything zips together properly and it looks right. Then you top stitch around the edge of the quilt and sew shut the opening at the bottom.

Outside

Inside – clothespins are being used to test the footbox

Once everything is sewn shut, you “quilt” the quilt and add yarn at even intervals to hold the insulation in place. The kit provides black yarn,  but I went out and bought some yarn that matched the fabric since I didn’t like the look of the black threads.

Using tape to mark where to quilt

Yarn I purchased

Entire quilt is “quilted”

Then it is time to sew shut the footbox (if you want). This is the one place I didn’t follow the instructions. The instructions specify to basically fold the quilt in half and then sew the footbox – so you end up with a tall, but narrow footbox. I thought we would appreciate having more width, then height, so I didn’t follow this method. We’ll see how it actually works out after a few nights sleeping under the quilt. We did have enough leftover insulation and fabric that I could make a panel for the footbox to make it 3D and more box-like if we find this design doesn’t work.

Inside out while sewing

Sewn shut

The kit also includes a small piece of webbing to use as a gusset/reinforcement

Testing it out on our floor, we seem to have enough room under the quilt, but we’ll need to have a few nights outside to see if it’s warm enough. I’ll report back in the spring!

In the meantime, if you are interested in another review – Hiking Hammonds talk about making the quilt and how it worked out in their PCT Gear Review.