Commission: Sleeping Bag Rework
Ryan Stark, who goes by the moniker @leaveswell, is a fellow artist here in Sacramento who I’ve had the pleasure of knowing through our mutual involvement with local arts non-profit Broad Room. Ryan approached me with the idea to turn his great-grandfather’s WWII-era sleeping bag into a workshop apron and I jumped at the chance to do such a cool and meaningful upcycle project.
Luckily for me, Ryan had another apron that he liked that I could use as a template, which made my job much easier. We did an initial discussion of what kind of design aspects he’d like to modify from that original apron, and then he pretty much trusted me to do what I wanted. After cutting out the usable parts of the sleeping bag’s outer layer, I used the existing apron to create the basic template. I saved all the scraps and used the offcuts to make the straps and pockets. For ease and simplicity I chose not to use any hardware and created loops at the waist instead. I was able to record most of the process, which you’ll see in the video above, except unfortunately my phone battery died during the fun part where I turn the sandwiched layers of the apron right-side out. Oh well! The whole process took about 8 hours total, spread over a week or so, and the finished piece turned out beautifully if I do say so myself! The aged canvas was amazing to work with and the fact that some parts were more faded than others created a lovely range of tones that became much more apparent with the patchwork.
How old is this fabric, I wondered. The original tag on the sleeping bag was still somewhat legible so I decided to do a little research - the manufacturer was the now-defunct ‘Seattle Quilt MFG Co.’ and they were manufacturing these ‘COMFY’ brand sleeping bags as early as the 1920s, using Army duck canvas and down filling - it weighs a ton. Fun fact: the beautiful brick Seattle Quilt MFG building was built in 1905 and still exists today in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.
So! This fabric might be close to 100 years old and is holding up like a champ. Huge kudos to Ryan for preserving this little bit of history and major thanks for allowing me to be a part of the process!
(Update!) What did I end up doing with the discarded inner parts of the sleeping bag, you may be wondering. It turns out that Momo was quite taken with laying on the thick wooly lining, so it became a dog bed for him! I was able to cut three rectangles out of it that would fit his existing hammock bed that I then stacked and sewed together with a few basic tie quilt style stitches. I used some large scraps from my stash to make essentially a large pillowcase - one side is a rainbow striped wool and the other is an army green Tyvek. It looks kind of like a mini Army issue sleeping bag, especially when it's on the hammock bed, so of course I had to roll it up and make ties for it. When the winter comes, we’ll bring the bed inside and put this topper on it, but we can keep it rolled up and out of the way for now. Another upcyle for the win!
