We know Karen Combs as a fabric designer that has been in Stash over the years. In our 21st edition fo Stash she has two lines, Java Gems and Batik Cascade with AvLyn Inc. In the October/November issue of Quilter’s Home (p. 88). Karen has a beautiful quilt made of her own fabrics, her Batik Cascade line. Was the quilt designed in EQ? Of course!

Karen says, “I’ve been a fan of EQ for years. It is my ‘go-to’ design software whenever I design quilts.

In my Batik Cascade quilt, I decided to play with the quilt design in black and white first. I knew I was going to add light and dark values of different colors to the quilt, and wanted to design the ‘bones’ of the quilt without color.“

(Secret tip from Karen – in most scrappy quilt designs, it is the value that does all the work. It really does not matter the color, as long as there are lots of lights and darks. Value will do all the work and color will get all the credit!)

“For this design, I colored the design in black and white. I wanted to make an off-set spiral and kept rotating the blocks until I had the design just as I wanted. (What a time saver!) After the design was in place, I added the ‘border’, in cream. This helped me see the shapes I needed to cut and their placement.

Once I had my design in place, I used my Batik Cascade fabric to create the light and dark blocks. Since this batik shades from light to dark, all the values I needed are in one place.”

All the values in one place? What a great idea, it could be the inspiration for all kinds of colorful (or…wait, I mean value-based) quilts.

You can see all of Karen’s fabric lines with Avlyn: Batik Cascade & Java Jems.

View all of Karen’s patterns, books and fabrics at www.karencombs.com. And, don’t forget to check her out in the latest Stash due out in October.

Want to read more? Check out this interview we did with Karen last year. Don’t forget to get the free EQ6 pattern from Karen at the end.