Sleeping Beauty... or not...

H:
One of our sewing projects to be done is a sleeping bag of sorts.  It's made out of sleeping bag material but will be closer to a quilt when done.  One theory is that heat rises and while insulation on top is necessary but the bag underneath you is squished flat when you lay on it and thus you loose the insulation properties.  To save weight while hiking you can simply eliminate the material under the sleepers.  There are commercial versions available for $380!  Our kit was about $145.

Let the sewing begin... after cutting out all the pieces.

The insulation will be 2 layers thick because I sleep COLD!  Another benefit to the 2-person quilt is that the heat of the 2 sleepers is shared within the quilt.

The quilt has some shaping and piecing that needs done.  Due to the construction, instead of a standard vertical zipper for opening the bag, this one has a horizontal zipper that will separate the quilt into "halves" to make it easier to carry. 

After about 6 hours of work on the quilt I hit a wall.  Dave was helping me pin the layers together so that I could sew the quilt layers into one.  We were moving along just fine... then I found that there was an extra piece.  Why didn't this get put in before the bag was pinned together.  I read back over the instructions call for you to pin it all together but then a few pages later it has you remove the pins, put in this extra piece, then pin it all back together!  WHAT?!  

I had skimmed over the 12 pages of instructions before, but some how missed this series of steps.  The designer has you use clothes pins which might have been easier to follow exactly the instructions, but I can't figure out why you would pin it together and then unpin then repin.  I don't have a clothes pin to my name... but I am a quilter and I have lovely quilting straight pins.  I put a few hundred in the bag to keep the very slippery material from shifting.  Either way I was done for the day.  

I'm trying to build my will power back up to take 3/4 of the pins back out, stick in the extra piece of material and then pin it all back together to get sewing again.  Maybe today... then again it is a very sunny lovely day outside and maybe I should just go sit outside with a beer.