I am extremely pleased with my 2nd attempt at a quilt, I have been on the road with this quilt for all of September and the first week of October. I have 13 nights on the AT in Maine a few nights across the midwest on a cross country drive, a night above 11K in the Colorado Rockies, and a night in Southern Utah. Lets go with about 15-20 nights total, lowest temps were just below freezing at 11,000 feet in the Rockies. I slept decent that night, I had extra cloths on and 2 ppl and 2 dogs in my SL2 tent so I think this will be my quilt down to the mid 30's with confidence that I will sleep great.

The Stats:
Coyote Brown M50 shell, liner, and baffles.
apx. 12oz of down (I cut up quilt V 1.terrible which had 9 oz and added 3 more) Lost a lot of down in the salvage process but I would have to say less than .5 oz and in true thru-hiker fashion my down had more than 3 oz in it.
1.75" baffles, total loft is 2.5-3"

Total weight 17.5 oz.


My first attempt was too short and too wide, attempted karo step and failed miserably, and had a bad connection system around me. This second attempt came out great and I tried some fun things on this that I thought I should share because they worked great.

Top view all synched up, I added enough extra quilt at the top that I can completely cover my head I am a side and stomach sleeper


Bottom view all synched up


Simple "footbox" I made a sleeve at the bottom for a cord lock and 1/16" elastic cord. I took the extra fabric I had and added it at the bottom just so that in the middle of the night I can get my feet in and out of the bottom of the quilt without having to wake up and re-align everything. I was worried about this being too short but about 10" is perfect no more needed.


The part that I am the most proud of, I bought some 20mm beads from Joann's and used the leftover elastic cord to attach the bead to the quilt and make a loop on the otherside that the bead stays locked in. This is a simple and light bottom attachment system, I have 4 of these going up the bottom of the quilt and they work great. I am going to put this system on my next quilt and I would recommend others give this a try.

Edited by earn_my_turns on 10/20/2012 11:00:56 MDT.

Very nice specs, I like the choice of your M50 shell.

Very nice job. I would like to use your bead idea on my quilt if you don't mind. Did you just make a loop slightly larger than the bead? I am currently using mitten hooks but think this may be a better option. What do you think?

The M50 is great, seems to have all the same characteristics as M90 but weighs less.

The beads seam to be the very simple solution I had been trying to come up with for about a year when I was planning to sew a quilt. It was a true eureka moment when I was walking around JoAnn's looking for inspiration. I was about to go with buttons which I knew would be a pain to sew on and not work near as smooth.

I used an elastic cord loop sewn into the quilt seam. Make sure you bar tack it in very well, I had to go back and re-sew them all because the first time I climbed in to test it I ripped most of them out.

If you can find a glow in the dark bead about 20mm it would be a dramatic improvement on the bead and loop. I couldn't find any big enough.

I'm adding beads to my winter MYOG list. Thank you very much.