Flying Squares quilt block

Flying Squares

July 7, 1933-The Flying Squares quilt block comes from the midwest, "claimed as native by Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana," wrote Nancy Cabot in her Chicago Tribune column.

The pattern was relatively new in 1933 she said. She felt it was very easy to piece even for beginners.

I agree it's an easy block to sew but it's also a five patch block which is difficult to rotary cut when trying to make a 6" block.  Each square would need to be 1 1/5" plus 1/2" for seam allowance.

I found it much easier to paper piece it.  You can download the pattern I used here.

There is an antique copy of the Flying Squares pattern that was written by the Ladies Art Company in 1895 here. It's shown as a two color quilt and that's how Nancy Cabot showed it also. I decided to make mine two color but scrappy!

The paper piece pattern pieces are like shown below-

The Flying Squares block can also be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #2581.

I didn't find an old quilt made using this pattern but I did find this quilt from the Sutured for a Living blog. I love the scrappiness of this Flying Squares quilt.  The quilter didn't use the background fabric in every other square like it had been shown to be made originally.  I like this look even better!

Tomorrow-Doves in the Window