The Year Round Down Bag

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With that done, remove the sack ... pin the two sheets together along your tracing ... and cut out the shape, leaving a 1" margin between the pin line and your cutting line. Next, sew a 3/8" seam around the three unhemmed sides of the material. Then simply remove the pins, turn the cover right side out, and slip your sleeping bag inside! To keep it there, attach snaps, strips of Velcro fastener, or ribbon ties to the open edges of the casing (as indicated in Fig. 1).

The completed coverlet will keep your sleeping bag clean and add a nonslippery down comforter to your family's supply of winter bedding. What's more, when you next go campingespecially in cold weather-you can slip the homemade comforter casing inside your sleeping bag ... to provide additional warmth and to protect the sack's inner surfaces.

THE BOLSTER

While the comforter cover/bag liner can help you get full use of your sleeper during the cold season, you might wonder what to do with that expensive piece of equipment when you're between campouts during the warm months to come. Well, after the summer sun thaws the comforter off my bed, I simply slip the feathered bedwarmer into a bolster cover and use the bag as a cylindrical pillow! The case is easy to construct ... and since it's bigger than the average stuff sack, it's less likely to mat the fragile down filling.

The only raw materials needed to make the headrest cover are a 39" length-just over a yardof 36"-wide material (I find a medium- to heavyweight fabric works best), thread, straight pins, and a couple of strips of Velcro fastener.

The measurements indicated in Fig. 2 will neatly house my 4-1/4-pound down sleeping bag. If your sleeper is radically different in weight, you might consider custom-designing your cover. To do so, roll up your sleeping bag and slip it in a pillowcase. Then measure [a] the diameter of the end circle (add 1-1/2" for the seam allowance), [b] the length of the roll, and [c] the distance around the cylinder (add 8" to this measurement to provide an overlap of material). Now-using Fig. 2 as an examplemake your own pattern ... mark it on the fabric ... and cut out the three sections.

Once that's done, go on to make finished hems on the narrow sides of the rectangular piece of material (the 23" edges in Fig. 2) . . by turning each end under 1/2" and then 1/2 " again, and stitching the border.

Next, pin one of the circular pieces to the long (39") side of the rectangular sectionright sides facing-and sew these components together, running the seam 3/8" from the edges of the material. (You'll actually be

stitching completely around the circle, and then starting over, since the large piece will overlap itself.) Pin the other circle into place at the opposite end of the cylinder, again with the right sides of the material facing each other. Attach this section with extra care-spacing the fabric evenly so that the overlap is the same length on both ends of the pillow-and go on to stitch the circle in place.

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