Awhile ago I built a down quilt with a central zip that allowed the user access to the filling. The idea was that the user could replace the filling quickly and without any sewing. I suggested that a quilt built this way would also allow alternative fillings to be used for each specific trip. Perhaps a down filling for a lightweight summer hike or more water resistant synthetic filling for a kayaking trip. This idea was fine except that for the filling to be quickly swappable it would have to be contained in some kind of additional skin that could be inserted and removed from the shell. This added extra weight that I'm not prepared to carry so I inserted my filling directly into the shell and decided to build a second, fully synthetic, quilt with swappable fillings. As most synthetic fill comes as a continuous sheet then no container would be needed. Imagine, 1 shell with 2 or 3 different fillings that could cover all conditions. Sound useful? I thought so!
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Finished quilt with 8oz Apex insulation |