A queen sized quilt took up about half of my carry on bag, in a space bag. The quilt looked fine the next day when I got it out. I wouldn’t say it was show ready, but it was fine as a gift. My quilts are meant to be used, not displayed.

Use of plastic bags of any kind are not a good idea. Shipping is OK, with a note to tell the recipient to store in a cotton bag or pillowcase as soon as they receive it. Quilts need to breathe.

What a great idea! I may use this for other "material" items as well.

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry about the confusion on the name ... it didn't occur to me that vacuum bag more often means the bag inside your vacuum cleaner that collects all the dirt. "Now why would someone want to put their quilt in a vacuum bag?"

I was thinking about using one temporarily to ship a quilt, but in the end I don't think I'll save as much as the bag costs, and I don't think I'll put it to other uses, so I don't think I'll buy one. I might try Macybaby's solution of using a heavy duty garbage bag and a vacuum. I just need to get the air out for long enough to stuff it into a box.

Somehow I'm picturing the quilt going up the hose like in the cartoons when someone gets sucked into a vacuum.

We didn't have much luck with the "space bags" either. I stored some Fiber-fil in one, we sucked out the air, wrapped it in a 30 gallon trash bag and taped it with packing tape all around the thing. It stayed that way, but would be a terrible mess for the poor person on the other end!!