Yesterday, the Modern Quilt Guild sent out a newsletter to their members with a link to a Quilt of the Month pattern. For April, it is a pattern I wrote and I’m really happy to share it with other members of the guild. It seems like some of you were curious enough to come visit my blog. I now have new followers on Bloglovin and I want to welcome you. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about my sewing projects which are most of time quilt related. For those of you who have been following my projects for a while, thanks for all your lovely comments.

The pattern that was distributed to MQG members was for my Stretched Shoo Fly quilt. Some of you might recognize it as I had shared a sketch and fabrics for it back in September (see previous posts here and here). About that time, the MQG was looking for patterns for their Quilt of the Month series. I offered to write a pattern for this quilt. That is why I didn’t share more about it here even though I finished it back in November. I had shown the quilt to members of the Montreal MQG as this is the quilt I had done for our Modern Traditionalism challenge. But now, I’m happy to share some pictures with you. Here you can see it from the font.

All prints for the blocks were provided by Pam from Mad about Patchwork. Again, a big thanks to her. You can find the list of prints in this previous post. I used an Essex yarn-dyed linen blend in black for the background fabric. I just love its texture.

Here is the back of the quilt. It features a large shoo fly block.

I chose a solid fabric from my stash for the background fabric: Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Wedgewood. It is so soft! The print is Measurements from the Architextures collection by Carolyn Friedlander. I thought I’d share a bit more on the backing. I had 3 yards of the background fabric and 3/4 yard of the print. I figured out what was the largest Shoo Fly block I could do with what I had. My block finished at 36″ x 36″. Here is how I did the cutting and how I pieced them together. For the background fabric, I took a 63″ x WOF piece that I sliced in two. Then I cut two 13 3/4″ x 36 1/2″ pieces. I cut what I needed for the block from what was left. That is two 13″ x 13″ squares to make the HSTs and one 12 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ square for the block’s central square.

From the print, I cut  four 12 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ squares and two 13″ x 13″ squares to make the HSTs.

Here is how it was pieced (the dashed line is the final size of the quilt).

The pieced backing ended up a bit shorter than what I suggested in my pattern. But, it was ok for the quilting. And I think it was the best way to make the most of what I had.

For the quilting, here is what I sketched for the free-motion quilting pattern. I first started by quilting the lines with the circles that are running through the central columns of each block and trough the sashing between each block column.  I didn’t mark anything. I just used the seams as a guide to center the lines and position the circles. Then I quilted the wavy lines around it.

For the binding I used the print Texture Stripe in Malachite from the Florence collection by Denyse Schmidt. A great print for binding and I just love the colors.

I hope MQG members will enjoy my pattern and I’m looking forward seeing other variations of it. If you do a quilt based on it, I would love to see it in this Flickr group or on Instagram using #mqgstretchedshoofly.