Sixty blocks, and not one of them has a point to match. Lady Luck is built from strip sets cut into squares, with a small square stitched across three corners of each one so the block reads as an octagon. Four blocks meet to make a flower, fifteen flowers make the quilt, and the whole top finishes at 54 by 77 inches.
The pattern is from Robert Kaufman Fabrics, designed in house in 2015, and it is written around two complete collection roll-ups, which are packs of 2 1/2 inch strips.
Pattern details
Pattern name Lady Luck
Brand Robert Kaufman Fabrics
Designer Robert Kaufman Fabrics
Finished size 54 by 77 inches
Size category Throw, long enough to cover a lap and then some
Difficulty Beginner, our assessment: straight cuts, strip sets and stitch and flip corners, with no points to match anywhere. The pattern does not print a level
Block Strip pieced square with three snowballed corners, cut at 6 1/2 inches
Technique Strip piecing, subcutting, stitch and flip corners, sashing with cornerstones, two borders
Colorway Two roll-ups of prints against a low volume print, with a solid or near solid for the sashing and inner border
Fat quarter friendly No, the blocks come from 2 1/2 inch strips
Jelly roll friendly Yes, this is the precut the pattern is built on
Layer cake friendly No
Charm pack friendly No, the pieces are strips rather than squares
The pattern is free to download as a PDF, direct from Robert Kaufman: Lady Luck quilt pattern. It has the fabric list, the cutting for every piece, the block and quilt assembly diagrams, and the border measurements.
How the blocks go together
Ten strip sets of three strips each carry the whole quilt. Each strip set gives six 6 1/2 inch squares, and sixty of those squares make the top. Sewing in strip sets rather than cutting individual rectangles is what keeps sixty blocks from becoming a week of cutting, and The Quilter's Bible files it under patchwork with strips for exactly that reason: strips cut across the width of fabric, sewn, then subcut into segments.
The corners are the other time saver. A 2 1/2 inch background square goes on three corners of each block, sewn across the diagonal and flipped back, which is the same stitch and flip move used for a snowball block. The Bible's rule of thumb for that corner is useful when you want to change the scale: the small square is half the big one plus 1/4 inch, so a 6 1/2 inch block takes a 3 1/2 inch corner for a full size snowball. Lady Luck uses 2 1/2 inch squares instead, which gives a smaller, neater bite out of the corner and leaves more of the strips showing.
Press the seam allowances open, as the pattern instructs, and use a 1/4 inch seam throughout. With three strips in every block, an inaccurate seam shows up as a block that will not square to 6 1/2 inches, and our guide to cutting fabric accurately covers the ruler checks that prevent it.
One hundred eighty of those 2 1/2 inch background squares are needed, three per block. They are worth cutting all at once, in stacks, before the sewing starts.
Sashing, cornerstones and the two borders
Fifteen groups of four blocks make the body of the quilt. Sashing strips 2 1/2 by 12 1/2 inches separate them, and where the sashing rows cross there are small squares in the sashing fabric, the cornerstones that keep the grid aligned. The Quilter's Bible describes this as pieced sashing, and the practical note it gives holds here: add the sashing to the same two sides of every block, consistently, or the rows will not line up.
Then two borders, in that order. The inner one is 4 1/2 inches wide on the sides and 2 1/2 inches on the top and bottom, cut from the sashing fabric. The outer one is 3 1/2 inches on the sides and 3 inches on the top and bottom. Those different widths are deliberate: they square the proportions of a quilt that is much longer than it is wide.
The pattern also sets aside seven strips for the binding from the same fabric as the inner border, which is the tidy way to do it, and calls for 3 1/2 yards of backing.
Robert Kaufman also released this pattern in a second version, cut from batiks and finishing larger at 66 by 80 inches. That one is written up separately, in the Sunrise Blossoms batik version of Lady Luck, and the construction is the same idea in a different palette and scale.
Fabric for a quilt built on 2 1/2 inch strips
Two roll-ups give you the variety this quilt needs without any decisions at the cutting table. Any two coordinated packs of 2 1/2 inch precut strips will do the same job, one set for the blocks and one for the background pieces, and the mix of prints is what makes every block different.
The sashing, the inner border and the binding all come from the same fabric, so that one needs yardage rather than strips. A quiet solid or a near solid works best there, because the sashing has to read as a frame between busy blocks. The outer border is the place for a larger print, and that comes from fabric by the yard too.
If you want to see what the snowballed corner does before committing sixty blocks to it, our article on the snowball quilt block and the stitch and flip corner tests the tips that are supposed to make it accurate. And there are more patterns like this one in our beginner quilt patterns collection.
