shoo fly - A Nine Patch Block

The Shoo fly block is another early block which can be found in extant quilts from the 1800's and has appeared in printed form throughout the twentieth century.  It was one of the patterns published by Nancy Cabot in the Chicago Tribune in 1933 and so is a common block in sampler quilts from the thirties and forties.  The classic version of the shoo fly is a two colour block but a simple variation is to change the centre square to make it a three colour variation.

How to draft the Shoo Fly Block

The Shoo Fly Block starts with a 3x3 grid.

The four outer squares are turned into half square triangle units.  

Add some colour by using two colours/patterns with some contrast and that's it

Variation:

Make a three colour version by making the centre square from an accent colour.

Hers is an example of the three colour version made by Nancy's Notions and using the two at a time method of making half square triangles -instructions have four of the basic block shown above set in a 2x2 grid. each block is 6 inches finished.

Here and here are instructions and block layout from Threadbare Creations along with another couple of posts here and here

This example is for a 12 inch finished block in two colours by Chock-A-Block quilt blocks.

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