Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Shoofly is a traditional quilt block made with squares and half-square triangles. It is a nine patch block, which means that it is made with nine squares in a 3 x 3 layout.
It is traditionally made as a 12” block, which makes it easy to calculate what sizes the squares have to be. It is easy to adjust the block to make it 6”, 9” or 15”, since those numbers are divisible by 3. (See a tutorial for a traditional shoofly block here.)
However, to make a shoofly block 5” is more difficult mathematically. 5 does not divide by 3 to give a number that is easy to use in quilting. To fix that problem, we can adapt the block. Instead of making the shoofly with nine equal squares, we can make the middle section smaller.
This block is made with two fabrics - a feature colour and a background colour.
To make this block, you will need:
- Two 3” squares of feature fabric
- Two 3” squares of background fabric
- One 1-1/2” square of feature fabric
- Four 1-1/2” x 2-1/2” pieces of background fabric.
Make a traditional 12" shoofly block:
epidastudio.com/nine-patch-sampler-week-four-shoo-fly
Quilting skills:
epidastudio.com/quilting
***** See more projects *****
Visit epidastudio.com for more tutorials
Get patterns, courses and workshops at epidastudio-shop.com
***** Follow Epida Studio *****
Instagram instagram.com/elizabeth.epidastudio
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Pinterest pinterest.ca/epidastudio
Shoofly is a traditional quilt block made with squares and half-square triangles. It is a nine patch block, which means that it is made with nine squares in a 3 x 3 layout.
It is traditionally made as a 12” block, which makes it easy to calculate what sizes the squares have to be. It is easy to adjust the block to make it 6”, 9” or 15”, since those numbers are divisible by 3. (See a tutorial for a traditional shoofly block here.)
However, to make a shoofly block 5” is more difficult mathematically. 5 does not divide by 3 to give a number that is easy to use in quilting. To fix that problem, we can adapt the block. Instead of making the shoofly with nine equal squares, we can make the middle section smaller.
This block is made with two fabrics - a feature colour and a background colour.
To make this block, you will need:
- Two 3” squares of feature fabric
- Two 3” squares of background fabric
- One 1-1/2” square of feature fabric
- Four 1-1/2” x 2-1/2” pieces of background fabric.
Make a traditional 12" shoofly block:
epidastudio.com/nine-patch-sampler-week-four-shoo-fly
Quilting skills:
epidastudio.com/quilting
***** See more projects *****
Visit epidastudio.com for more tutorials
Get patterns, courses and workshops at epidastudio-shop.com
***** Follow Epida Studio *****
Instagram instagram.com/elizabeth.epidastudio
Facebook facebook.com/epidastudio
Pinterest pinterest.ca/epidastudio
