Make a quilt, filled with feathers?

[Sabz]

I am not sure these are the rights terms, but I was thinking about sewing a quilt and then fill the interior with chicken feathers to make it fluffy!

Have you tried that? Any ballpark of the number of chickens needed for a whole quilt?

I will have 13 meat chickens to process around the same time.
I thought of cleaning the feathers and keeping them to make the quilt I am hoping that maybe 2 batches of 13 chickens would provide enough for a quilt, but I have never plucked a chicken yet, I have no real idea!

 

[wyoDreamer]

You really wouldn't want to use the feathers for the filling. The shafts of the feather will be too hard to make a comfy quilt. The best bet is to use the down - as in "goose down" coat. Those are the little fluffy feathers underneath. I don't know how the meat birds do for down, you could always try to save it though. My mom had three pillow cases full of down feathers from my dads bird hunting forays that she saved up for making a comforter. I think it was about 8-12 partridge a year for three years... I was about 7 years old, so just guessing.

The best bet would be to make a down filled "pillow" with a good, high-quality fabric and use your quilt itself more as a "Pillow-case" to put over it. You would then be able to take off the quilt portion and wash it as needed, you won't be able to wash the down. The down will also be really warm, so good in winter, but in the summer you could take out the down pillow and still use the quilt as a summer spread for your bed.

The pillow portion is just two pieces of fabric with the down between. You need to use a really good muslin with a higher thread count as the down shafts will work their way out through the fabric. You will need to do some stitching to make sure the down doesn't all settle to one corner of the pad. It is kinda tricky to make - you sew the two pieces together, leaving a 1' opening on edge; then you stuff in all your down feathers; then you kinda have to shake and shift the feathers until it is an even layer through out the entire pillow. At that point you pin it together really well, like you would for a quilt. Trying not to disturb the down, do your sewing to make the pockets to contain them. Not enough pockets, you will get the down shifting into blobs in the corners, too many and you loose the warm fluffiness.

The quilt would be quilted with just the pieced top and a solid piece of fabric to stabilize it, just like a normal quilt, but without anything between them. Then sew on another back to form the pillow-case to slip the down pad into. Put some ties on the open end (or buttons and button holes like my mom did).

Here is a sketch to show what I am talking about. This is how my mom did it. The pillow slides in to the pillowcase - viola - comforter.

 

[redpennies15]

I attempted to make myself a feather pillow with chicken down feathers. Even with two layers of fabric the shafts poked through and out of the pillow. I'm a newbie to this sort of thing, so I'm sure there's a trick to it that I haven't discovered. Probably a special fabric to prevent feathers working their way out. I'll be watching this thread to see if anyone has some good advice for us!

 

[Sabz]

Thanks to both of you!

I didn't even think for one second about the feather's shaft.

Also I didn't even know we called the fluffy feathers "down" Dreamer, you really made me realize a bunch of things. I didn't think about sewing pockets in the quilt.

Higher thread count for the fabric, makes sense. I took note of all of this and will see how much down I can recuperate from my meat birds! Then I'll check if I want to attempt the quilt Seems more complex than I thought, I am not much of a sewing person... but I would be so proud to be able to use the meat as food, the feathers for my quilt and the poop for my compost! I don't like to waste anything, trying to make the most out of my chickens