I am a confirmed hammock dweller, summer, autumn, winter and spring I will sleep in my hammock when outdoors. I just find it the easiest most comfortable way to sleep. However, like any form of camping or sleeping outdoors you do have to adjust things as the temperatures change. A jungle trip would be the ideal environment to sleep in a hammock; however it can still get chilly at nights so I want a system to keep me warm but that would pack down smaller and lighter than my current set up.
Just for the record, I use either a DD Frontline or a UK Hammocks Greenman XL along with Snugpak underblanket and quilt and these work fine for me year round but can be a bit nippy if the temperature drops below -5 and in summer can be a bit too warm. I tend to use the DD Frontline in colder temps as its non breathable layer is warmer, the UK Greenman is roomier and cooler in warmer temps. Now for the jungle trip I don’t want a big pack or much in the way of insulation, just enough to keep off any night chills. I expect it to be damp and humid, so thinking about fabrics was a priority. Down is the best insulator, but doesn’t cope well with damp conditions, Wool is great but bulky so I was thinking artificial synthetics would be best. I also didn’t want what I was going to make to be just a one hit wonder. I wanted it to have uses at other times of the year and other environments.
I had in the loft a fleece sleeping bag liner that I no longer use and I was sure it would do the job, so I unpicked the draw cords from it and set about converting it into my hammock blanket.
I placed my Snugpak quilt over the top of the fleece to get a size comparison and found the fleece to be bigger than the quilt, this was a bonus as I first thought it would be smaller. With them both folded in half lengthways I drew around the quilt onto the fleece, marking out where I was going to cut off the excess. My quilt has “wings” that are great to tuck under you so I wanted these on the fleece too. Once marked out I cut off the excess fleece as required. I wanted to make sure I had a foot pocket as well to keep my toes toasty.
So to the sewing machine to sew a hem all the way round and sew in the foot pocket. This was a very quick job as fleece is easy to sew. A bit of a tip though that I find really helps. When sewing, pull the fleece tight, this allows the stitching to shrink back with the fleece, so that when it is pulled or stretched the stitches don’t pull or break. With the hem and foot pocket all sewn, that was the blanket finished. I also needed something to stow the blanket in, so an old pair of trousers came in handy as a perfect start to make a stuff sack.
I cut off part of the leg and basically just made a draw cord topped bag. Sewing twice round all the seams to make them strong. Then threaded some shock cord through the top and added a plastic toggle. The blanket fits in perfectly and the stuff sack also doubles as a pillow case when the blanket is in use. In the photo of the stuff sack I have put a Woolpower 600 jumper in it and it works really well as a pillow. So when I’m using the blanket for real I will just put some clothing in the stuff sack to use as a pillow.
So you may be interested in size and weight comparisons, in the photos you can see the difference in size (the Nalgene 1Ltr bottle is for scale) and on the scales you can see that the Snugpak quilt comes in at just under 2lb 8oz whereas the blanket is under 1lb 8oz a good weight saving. Of course I know that the blanket won’t be as warm as the quilt but for a jungle trip I think it will be fine. For real winter conditions and temperatures my thinking was that I could use the fleece and the quilt in combination for added warmth. In summer I may just need the fleece to keep off any chills. So hopefully I have created a multi-use blanket that will be used in many ways.
