Ray-Way Quilt Kit by Ray & Jenny Jardine

History: Ray-Way Quilt

We invented the camping quilt in 1992, and originated the term "Quilt" as regards to sleeping in the outdoors. We called it the "Quilt" because of the yarn ties (quilts) we used to hold the insulation in place. We still use these ties in our design today.

Late Fall of 1992, making our first home-made Quilt. Note: Despite appearances, the head-end corners are not round. The loft is making them look round.

1992: This was the world's first quilt. These two photos were taken a day apart.

The same first quilt in 1993 on the A.T. Our sleeping gear was always moist and rather flat because the tent trapped moisture during the night, as coming from our breath and insensible perspiration - and the tent's huge open doorway (and awning, not shown) didn't help much. But at least the synthetic insulation kept us warm at night, and this was a major breakthrough. But during the day, we couldn't dry the quilt very well, because of the rain and high humidity. Next year we switched to a tarp, and that made an equally huge difference. We found that with a tarp, we did not need to dry the quilt, because it was never damp, in spite of the rain.

Spring 1994, making our third quilt in preparation for our fifth thru-hike, PCT-3

Summer 1994, our third quilt in the North Cascades on the PCT.

Sewing the Quilt Kit

The Ray-Way Quilt Kit is a very straightforward project, even for someone with little sewing experience. The continuous filament insulation is easy to work with, compared with goose down, and the type of seams used are very simple. Yet the finished quilt will out-perform even the most expensive and complex sleeping bag. It will keep you just as warm, and will save you money. You can easily customize your quilt for a perfect fit, something not possible with store-bought gear. And like any item you make yourself, it will free you of the usual dependence on commercially manufactured items and their glossy magazine hype. Making it yourself is all about freedom and independence, and as many home sewing enthusiasts would likely affirm, the results will be something you can be truly proud of.

How long does the sewing take?

We have designed our quilt kits for ease of construction. Novices at our sewing classes typically made their quilts in five to eight hours. You can complete your quilt in a single session, or spread it out over several relaxing evenings. Either way, every minute spent on your quilt is quality time invested in yourself and your future outings and adventures.

What type of sewing machine?

Our quilt kits use very lightweight materials that are easily sewn. The sewing machine need not be robust.

Our quilt kits require only a straight stitch and a reversing lever which virtually all sewing machines have. Special types of stitches, including the zigzag, are not used on our quilts.

Thread Pro

For your sewing convenience we recommend using our Sewing Thread Pro . This thread is easier to use; it does not skip, it leaves very little lint in your sewing machine and therefore your machine will need less frequent cleaning and fewer adjustments. Our thread produces superior results, so your sewing will look more professionally done. This thread is not included in our kits, but is a separate item listed on our Order Form.

Ray-Way alpine quilt sewn by Magnus O., U.K.

Ruedi Anneler, Switzerland.

Kit Advantages

Our quilt kit contains detailed instructions that guide you through the construction process, step by step.
Our kits save you time searching for the fabrics and insulation, both of which are specialized and hard to find.
Everything in our kits is exactly what you will need.
Our kits contain only the finest materials, not cheap substitutes.
Our kits will save you money. Even if you could find these materials elsewhere, you would pay more for them. We buy in bulk and pass the savings along to you.
And were you to purchase your materials elsewhere, you would not get our excellent instructions.

Simply stated, our goal is to provide you with excellent sewing instructions coupled with the best and most appropriate materials for this project - all at very reasonable cost.

James and Gena Gibling.

Custom Sizing

We design our quilt kits to be custom fit to the individual. The instructions supplied with each type of kit describe how this is done, during the quilt's construction. However, before your order your kit, the following considerations apply:

1-P Length

Our one-person quilt kit is long enough for someone up to (and including) 6'1". If your height is between 6'2" and 6'7", please add one Long Option to your order.

1-P width

Max width for our one-person quilt kit is around 57". If you need wider, we suggest adding the 1-P Wide Option (found on our order form) which gives you up to 4" in extra width. If you need your quilt wider than 61", then we suggest the two-person quilt kit. If you need narrower, and most people certainly will, then you would simply trim the materials according to the directions included with the kit, for a perfect fit.

For a general idea of the width of your 1-person quilt, prior to purchasing your kit, crawl under a sheet or blanket and place a couple of clothes pins on its upper edge - one on each side of you - at what seems like the best width. Then lay the blanket flat and measure that width. Note that this is only a guideline prior to purchasing your kit. The blanket is not contoured like the quilt, and will not fit you nearly as nicely. But if your measurement is 57" or less, then we can suggest the 1-person quilt kit. If 58" to 61" then add the 1-P Wide Option to your order. If you think you might be borderline on 57" we might suggest adding the Wide Option anyway, because it will give you more latitude in your measuring, and more materials to work with.

Again, the kit includes instructions for determining your actual quilt width, during its construction.

2-P Length

Our two-person quilt kit is intended for those up to 5'10" in height. If taller than that, simply add the 2-person Long Option to your order. If you are borderline on 5'10" we might suggest the Long option anyway.

The 2-P Long Option includes 67" of additional fabric and 67" of additional insulation, both about 60" wide. This large amount is necessary due to the layout of the pieces, and it leaves you with plenty left over for making other small projects. The Long Option is for those up to 6'7".

2-P width

Max width for our 2-person quilt kit is 73" finished (whether the length is Standard or Long Option).

Weights

Our 1-person quilt made with our 1.1 oz Light nylon fabric and 2 layers of Woodland (5/8") insulation weighs slightly over 1.5 lb. (25 oz.) This weight includes the Gorget but not the draft stopper. The Gorget weighs 2 oz, and may be omitted at time of construction. The 25 oz. weight is far below even the lightest commercial sleeping bags containing a comparable thickness of synthetic insulation. Note that these weights are for the example size given in the instructions as W=53", L=82" for someone 5' 10" tall.

Switching from Woodland to Alpine would increase the weight of a two-layer 1P quilt by 6.2% and the bulk by 15%

With apologies we do not have the specific weights of our 2-person quilt. But to give a comparison, our 2-person quilt uses about the same amount of nylon and insulation as an ultralight 1-person commercial sleeping bag. But imagine splitting that 1-person sleeping bag in half, and carrying only half of it. That is what our SplitZip does for our 2-person quilt. So in effect, each person carries the equivalent of one-half of a sleeping bag. That is a huge savings in weight, bulk, and expense for a couple who sleeps together.

One-person Ray-Way quilt sewn by John C.

Handling the Quilt

Unpacking

We ship your quilt kit in a fairly large box to prevent over-compressing the insulation. Even so, we recommend you open the box right away and remove the insulation from its plastic bag. If possible, spread the insulation on a clean, freshly vacuumed or mopped floor and allow it to "rest" for a couple of days. This will give the insulation a chance to spring back to its original, as-manufactured thickness. That done, find a much larger plastic bag, something like a large trash bag, and store the insulation in that until ready to use.

Of course, if you will be making your quilt right away, you can simply begin, knowing that the insulation will need some time to bulk up, later on.

The floors in homes with indoor pets are normally contaminated with pet hairs and dander. Even without pets, considerable dust is often present. The quilt kit's raw insulation would collect this contamination like a magnet. So before spreading the insulation on the floor, we recommend you vacuum or mop, and that you then place a cotton bed sheet over it. Once you have finished making the quilt, the insulation will be nicely protected by the outer layers of nylon and not nearly as vulnerable to contamination.

Washing

We recommend regular washings to remove any dirt and skin oils, keeping the fabric and insulation working at it's best.

You can wash your quilt by hand in a bathtub with warm water and a small amount of mild soap. Agitate by hand, then rinse several times.

Alternatively, you may use a large front-loading washing machine, again with warm water and a small amount of mild soap. Use a low spin speed, it's more gentle.

We recommend against using a top loading washing machine because the action of its rotating center post could damage the quilt.

We also recommend against the use of an automatic clothes drier, because the temperature controls of these machines are typically unreliable, and even moderately hot air might damage the materials. In a pinch, say on a rainy day in town during a long hike, you could use a clothes drier set to no heat, or to very low heat which you would then check often (by opening the door and place your hand on the quilt to feel if its too hot). Otherwise, the safest drying method is to simply spread the quilt on a clean groundsheet, or a pitched tarp, and let it air dry.

Durability

Properly cared for, your quilt should last decades. Unlike goose down which eventually goes flat, our synthetic insulation does not. However, it will temporarily lose loft if over-compressed. For example, if you set off on a journey and every morning jam your quilt or sleeping bag into a too-small stuff sack, depending on how small, the quilt will spring back a little less each time you pull it out. And about a month into your trip, the quilt or sleeping bag might have become too thin for comfort. But take it home and let it sit for several months, and your Ray-Way quilt will spring back nearly to its original loft. This does not hold true with most other types of insulation.

Our recommendations:

Our Ray-Way stowbag is designed to carry a quilt with no loss of loft. During each journey I carry my quilt in one of these, and find at the end of the trip that the quilt is about the same thickness as when I started. But as described in Tail Life, I never sit-down on my quilt when it's in it's stowbag; and I always use gentleness when pulling the quilt out of it's stowbag.

Nevertheless, on a long trip of more than three months, you might consider placing a second quilt or sleeping bag in one of your later resupply boxes. This might apply whether you are using one of our quilts, or any commercial sleeping bag made with synthetic or goose down insulation. If well taken care of, your Ray-Way quilt should last the duration, but a journey is not a good time to find out that you didn't take very good care of it. Consider the replacement as a form of insurance.

Quilt Stuffed Size

What is the stuffed size of our quilts in whatever configuration? Our answer is that we cannot quote a specific stuffed size, because it depends on how densely one crams the quilt into its stowbag. Nor is there any such thing as an optimum tightness or looseness because that depends on the size of one's backpack and the duration of the trip.

If the trip will be short, something like a weekend, you may stuff the quilt a little more tightly - as long as you give it a few hours of relaxing out of the stowbag prior to bedtime, and once you have returned home, that you leave it out of the stowbag for a few weeks to allow it to loft back up. On a long thru-hike, one has very little time for lofting, so the stowbag should be larger.

Discover the advantages of the Ray-Way Quilt by Making one for yourself!
(Order Form)

This is why we designed our stowbag to be adjustable in volume, so that it will accommodate any of our quilts, excepting the Xtra Layer, and also fit into most backpacks.

Note, however, that the tighter the stuff, the more loft degradation. Using a stowbag with, say, a 6" diameter by however long, and the quilt (or any sleeping bag made of synthetic or down insulation) would come back out flat as a pancake and require several months to recover. Clearly that would be a case of misuse.

Quilt Stowbag Kit

Please see: Ray-Way the Quilt Stowbag Kit.

Quilt and Tarp Integration

With a sleeping bag, people usually sleep warmer without their clothes. But there's something that the "experts" don't tell you, often because they don't know this themselves.

The sleeping bag is usually too warm. So a person wearing clothes in a sleeping bag tends to fall asleep at a slightly elevated temperature. And for the first hour or so, the body compensates by expelling more perspiration. And where does this moisture end up? In the person's clothes. As this moisture builds up in the next hour or so, the clothes grow less warm. And remember, it's very difficult to feel the dampness in body-warmed clothes. But finally a point is reached where the damp clothes become heat-robbing, and from then on, the person is likely to spend a not-so-warm night.

Without wearing clothes to begin with, the sleeping bag is not so overly warm, so the person is likely to perspire less, and so sleep warmer.

This strategy benefits the people selling sleeping bags, because they can sell much thicker, and therefore much more expensive sleeping bags, and also much larger and more expensive backpacks to carry them in.

But it does not benefit the camper, because it means that he or she must carry separate warm clothes to wear in the daytime, and a thick sleeping bag to sleep in. And the use of the two are mutually exclusive.

Another bad idea is to use a somewhat thinner sleeping bag and to sleep in ones clothes, thick or thin, to compensate. For over one-hundred years people have been trying that, and failing. Why? Sleeping bags are too restrictive of ventilation. That means that either the clothes worn inside the bag are too thin, causing the person to sleep cold; or the clothes are too thick, causing dampness, causing the person to sleep cold as well.

That brings us to my shelter/insulation analogy.

"Sleeping bags are to tents, as quilts are to tarps."

That is, both the sleeping bag and the tent restrict ventilation. The quilt and tarp are open all around, so they promote ventilation.

So the quilt/tarp combination is much warmer for the weight and bulk. More ventilation means drier, and therefore warmer. And remember that heat rises, and is trapped by the quilt.

The quilt is designed for the person to sleep with their clothes on. And the colder the night, the more clothes should be worn. After all, in colder weather you are carrying warm clothes for the day, right? So why not put them to use at night also? With a quilt you can.

That's why Jenny and I use a 2-person quilt with the Alpine Upgrade on most of our trips. Even 57 days skiing to the South Pole. Even sleeping at 13,000' at Camp 2 on Vinson in Antarctica; even at 17,000' at Base Camp on Everest; even at 19,000' at Camp 2 on Aconcagua. The colder the night, the more clothes we wear under the quilt.

Multiple Quilts

For those who have made one of our quilt kits, and for those who have not yet, we have three recommendations:

Gone are the days when you had only one sleeping bag. In fact, many of us do not even have one sleeping bag, because like Jenny and me, you now sleep in a quilt when outdoors.

Nevertheless, Jenny and I do not have only one quilt. We have several, (dozens in fact) and each is customized according to the application. For example, we have quilts with only a single-layer of insulation for relatively warm nights, double-layer quilts for colder nights, double-layer Alpine quilts for the mountains, and even triple-layer quilts for kayaking in the Arctic.

We haven't used a zipped-up sleeping bag in 25 years, or blankets either. We think our quilts work much better than sleeping bags, and better than blankets too. So whether we are home or in the wilds, we use our quilts.

In the processes of making so many quilts, we refined the design for performance and efficiency, and simplified it for ease of construction. This was many years ago. And several years ago, when we began selling our quilt kits, we started buying our materials in bulk, and of course we are passing the savings on to our customers.

All our personal quilts have been on lengthy adventures, and only two came back shot. For one we used light-loft, and it went flat as a pancake. But even that quilt is still in use. Our pet macaw uses it for her play quilt. (She goes underneath and turns upside down, and pretends she is sleeping like us. Or she roots around beneath it pretending it is her nest.) The quilt we used while rowing the Atlantic came back destroyed, because as an experiment we didn't install the quilting yarns. Not a good idea.

Except for those two quilts, all our others have returned home with no significant damage - saving for a slight loss of loft when first stuffing them in their stowbags - which is normal.

Backing up even further, we used to use sleeping bags made of goose down, (un-zipped and spread over us like a quilt) and without exception they returned home from our lengthy trips with far greater loss of loft. So we had to buy a new down bag each year at $350 a pop. This was mainly why, in the early 1990's, we started making our own quilts of synthetic insulation. They were far cheaper and we could easily customize them to suit.

Nevertheless, we still prefer to start each trip with a new quilt. Why not, when they are relatively cheap and easy for us to make?

So our first recommendation is that everybody have more than one quilt. That way you can match your quilts to the trip for the most efficient system.

Our second recommendation is that you use the quilts also at home. Maybe you would enjoy sleeping under a quilt on your bed, or for use as a comforter in bed or on the couch. For summer you might use a light quilt, and in winter a thicker one.

You can easily customize your quilt kit for use at home. For example, you can make it wider and a bit longer, and you could omit the taper in the leg area, and omit the foot pocket too - so that the quilt will cover your bed and lay flat. That way, you can sleep with the sheet over you (or not) underneath the quilt. Very warm and cozy! The quilt also is lighter than blankets, so like us you may find that you sleep better without that weight of the blankets pressing down on you.

And for those who have made one of our quilt kits, making another one would be a snap. So you could even sew one for each family member.

If you have children, they might use their quilts also for camping in the back yard. This would be a good way to introduce them to the joys of camping in nature. That's how I started out.

Our final recommendation for today is that everyone have at least one Ray-Way quilt per family member for emergencies. Chances are you would never be called to evacuate your home, but you might think about being prepared in any case. Blankets are not nearly as warm as our quilts.

Also, we recommend for those living in areas of heavy and cold winters, that each person carry a quilt in their trunk or back seat. The back seat of your car might not be too roomy for stretching out, but your Ray-Way quilt with two layers of Alpine insulation would plenty warm, even with the windows rolled part way down for ventilation.