What is a Karo Step Quilt?
Karo step baffles are a series of interconnected rectangular or square compartments, filled with down insulation, that are sewn into the quilt's shell fabric.
Karo step baffled quilts have 2 big advantages over quilts that do not have interconnected baffles:
- They're significantly easier to fill. When filling karo step quilts, your down fill only needs to be measured once, if at all. Filling quilts with non-interconnected baffle designs ("regular" quilts) will require you to either measure out your down fill for each individual baffle OR guesstimate the amout of down you stuff into each baffle by eye. Both of these methods are time consummung and can be inaccurate.
- They're more versitle in a wide range of conditions. The interconnedcted baffles of a karo step quilt allow you to shift the quilt's insulation based on extrinsic factors like temperature, drafts, your clothing, and personal preference.
Drafting a Karo Step Down Quilt Pattern
The Example Pattern above is a pattern that I designed for myself. I’m 6’2”, 170 lbs.
When you draft your own pattern: make sure you make the main panel of your quilt at least 5 inches taller than you are if you’re building a quilt with a sewn in footbox. If you’re building an open quilt, add a few more inches. You'll lose a surprising amount of your quilt's length when its filled and everything is sewn together.
Why Build Your Own Quilt Instead of Just Buying One?
- You can generally save around $200-$350
- You can fine tune all of your pattern dimensions to fit your needs exactly
- You'll have unlimited fabric choices and will be able to add any extra features you'd like
Should I Build My Quilt With Down or Synthetic Insulation?
Pros of a Down Quilt (Compared to Synthetic)
- Down is more durable and maintains it's loft better over time
- Significantly more packable
- Significantly lighter
Cons of a Down Quilt (Compared to Synthetic)
- More expensive
- Harder to build
- Doesn't maintain its loft as well in high humidity
- Insulation is useless when wet
- Insulation is finicky to use. It generally needs to be shaken out every night and it can clump together when moist
What are the Downsides of Using Karo Step Baffles?
The karo step quilt that I built in the video is actually the first karo step quilt I've ever used. Before this, I used vertical baffle down quilts. So far I've spent 200+ nights in my karo step quilt. I haven't had any serious problems with my karo step quilt so far but to be completely honest, for my next quilt, I'll probably go back to using a vertical baffle design. For me personally, having the ability to shift my quilts insulation up and down the quilt but not having the insulation shift by itself from side to side is ideal.
If you toss and turn a lot in your sleep, you are more likely to create cold spots (areas where insulation has shifted away) in your quilt while you are sleeping if you use a karo step quilt.
How Far Apart Should My Baffles be/ How Many Should I Have?
With any baffle design, the more baffles you have, the better your down will be held in place. This sounds obvious but its an easy thing to overlook. Obviously, the better your down is held in place, the easier your quilt will be to use. The downside of using more baffles is the more baffles you use, the heavier your quilt will become. Also, an excessive amount of baffles could cause your insulation to become over compressed. For these reasons, I try to minimize baffles in my down gear. The baffle spacing in the example pattern is probably too wide for most people but it's just enough for me.
How Wide Should My Baffle Strips Be?
This is something that I really should've mentioned in the video. For the quilt in the video, I said that I started off with 3.5" baffling but I actually slimmed each baffle individually to be the exact width that I want it to be based on its location on the quilt. The baffles below my legs are around 0.5" (excluding seam allowance) and the baffles in the middle of the torso are around 2.75" (excluding seam allowance).
What Type of Down Should I Use?
Using the highest fill power down that you can afford to buy isn't necessarily the best option. Yes, using down with the highest fill power means that your quilt will have the greatest warmth to weight ratio BUT, just know that higher fill power down is less resistant to moisture and more susceptible to clumping.
How Much Down Should I Use?
Overstuffed quilts are less finicky to use, less susceptible to the down shifting and causing cold spots, and don't necessarily always need to be shaken out really well after being compressed all day (although they should be).
Pretty much every down quilt that you can buy is overstuffed by at least 20%. An overstuffed quilt is going to be significantly easier to use BUT a quilt that has just the right amount of down will be as warm as it possibly can be for its weight. The quilt in the video above has just enough down to fully loft itself.
I’d highly recommend you overstuff your quilts but if you don't mind using a quilt that's a little fussy and you know that you can keep your insulation dry, not overstuffing might be the way to go.
Another advantage of building quilts with karo step baffles is if you mess up and add too much or too little down, you can easily just rip open a seam and take out or add more down.