Block · Nine-patches
Shoo Fly
A nine patch with half-square triangles in the corners and plain squares on the sides and in the middle.
- Other names
- Shoofly
- Known from
- USA, from the late 1800s
- First known print
- The Ladies' Art Company's catalogue of 1898 (no. 276), drawn exactly like this block; the name is also in Marie Webster's list of 1915.
- Origin
- Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
- Family
- Nine-patches
- Difficulty
- Medium · Triangles, geese and other angles cut with a ruler
- Grid
- 3 × 3 cells
History
Webster puts Shoo Fly among the names after birds and insects. The museum in Lincoln has a Shoo Fly from Vermont from 1880–1900. It is tempting to think of the song "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me", which became popular in 1869, but no source shows a link.
The name has settled on several blocks. Carrie Hall's block from the 1900s is called Corn and Beans, Shoo Fly, Handy Andy, Hen and Chickens and Duck and Ducklings at once, and the museum in Lincoln has quilts called Shoo Fly with different numbers in Barbara Brackman's encyclopedia, 2375b and 1645. That is why we give no number here.
How it is used
The block is a nine patch of four half-square triangles and five plain squares, so it is quick to cut with a ruler. With two rectangles on each side instead of one square it becomes Churn Dash.
It is set in rows with plain blocks or sashing between and stands well on point.
Quilts with the block
Shoo Fly on point
18 blocks on point · 46⅛" × 58⅞"
Related blocks
Sources
The text is our own, written from the sources below. Photos of old quilts with the block are in the museums' collections.
- Book Ladies' Art Company: Diagrams of Quilt, Sofa and Pin Cushion Patterns (1898)
- Book Marie D. Webster: Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (1915)
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Shoo Fly, probably Vermont, 1880–1900
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Shoo Fly, Reversible, 1890–1910
- Museum Spencer Museum of Art: Carrie A. Hall, Corn and Beans or Shoo Fly block
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Underground Railroad Quilts?
- Article Sarah Ives, National Geographic: Did Quilts Hold Codes to the Underground Railroad? (2004)
- Article Barbara Brackman: When Pigs Fly Award (2025)