St Louis 16 Patch, the perfect summer project
I've been really leaning into seasonal living this year. It's the first year I've paid attention to how I feel through the winter months (ahem: not.great ;) ), and it's really changed the way I've approached these summer months. Where we live it is hot and muggy for most of the summer, but it's also something you can work to adapt to if you acclimate yourself to it. So here I am, acclimating. :) I'm trying to do a little more gardening, a little more fresh air and walks and outdoor dinners, and just soak up these days.
And all of this has been so great, but I've yet to figure out a space to sew on my machine outside. :) So I try to get a little sewing time in here and there, but I want it to be the type of sewing that is fun and quick and easy to put away and pull back out. So making the St. Louis 16 patch block is kind of perfect. I love it because the blocks are so oversized (they finish at 16"!) so they come together pretty quickly, but also they're so fun for prints that might be a little larger scale or you just don't want to cut up too much!
Initially I wrote up a quick block pattern to use (2) fat eighths, a light and a dark. A fat eighth (FE) is a precut cut at 9"x 21". I decided to just write it that way so you could kind of decide how many blocks you want to make and choose your fabrics from there! Included in the pdf for the block pattern is an example: a 64"x 64" throw quilt needs 16 blocks. So you need 16 FEs that are on the lighter side and 16 FEs that are on the darker side. You could also decide to not work with sooooo many fabrics and do 8 FQs (that's a fat quarter/18"x 21") that are on the lighter side and 8 FQs that are on the darker side. This would mean each fabric shows up in 2 separate blocks.
But another way you could play with this pattern is by using a single color/print for all of the light or dark fabrics. We did this with the blue/white quilt that Haley sewed up. We used the sweetest Riley Blake Mercantile Sweet Background in Denim as the light fabric, and then a variety of 8 FQs for the darker blues. It's so darling!!
To make a version like this, you'll use the block pattern found here, but then change the "light" fabrics for 2 yds (this is exact so you might want to add a little more) of the background fabric of your choice. Cut the 2 yds into (16) 4.5" x WOF strips, and then subcut those into (32) 4.5"x 21" strips. Match them to your FQ fabric like the pattern shows and whip those blocks together.
One little note: If you're interested in using directional fabric, there's a slight change in how you sew your strips together to make that possible. I've included it in the block pattern, but I don't want you to miss it!