Wild Guy Quilt

I went on a retreat with my guild this last weekend.  Oh what fun! While I was there, I made this quilt! Yay! 

A few folks asked what the pattern is.  There isn’t exactly a pattern, but its a combination of traditional blocks and so I thought I would share here what the blocks and dimensions are, in case you are hoping to make a quilt like this! 

I’m calling this quilt the Wild Guy quilt because of the over-the-top combination of prints, use of geese, and the amazing tigers and snakes from the Monika Forsberg print. (Also, I’m from the midwestern U.S., where everything and everyone is called a guy, from the most feminine of women to a pan of lasagna.)

The following picture is of my notes on this quilt. You can see my dimensions and the basic plan. I’ve learned to make these notes for myself in order to avoid silly mistakes. I’m not as young as I once was, plus my current schedule is unreliable and I sometimes go weeks without touching a project! With a quilt like this, where some decisions are made on the fly, it also gives me a dedicated place to doodle out my options.

I had the main blocks planned and cut before heading to the retreat.

The main block is a Friendship Block.  You can find a tutorial for making it on Quilter’s Cache (link).  I saw this block done in black, white, and gray on Anna Graham’s blog (link)(see picture below) and I was immediately drawn to it.  I thought the light center and the dark corners were really interesting and am, in general, a big fan of blocks that elaborate on the 9-patch.

• MEDIUM fabric: eight 2.5” x 4.5” rectangles

• LIGHT fabric: one 4.5” square AND eight 2.5” rectangles

The assembly instructions are on Quilter’s Cache (link). I used their assembly instructions, but didn’t follow their whole pattern (they make half of the blocks with the values flipped). I thought the final arrangement was interesting with the flying geese in the border. With that in mind, when I cut my medium and dark fabrics, I cut any large scraps that I generated into 4.5×2.5″ rectangles for later geese making!

After making my main blocks, I made a few geese and then laid things out to see if they would make a good sashing. They looked great so I moved forward and made enough geese to sash between blocks, using the same background fabric for all of the geese.

Each goose measures 4.5” x 2.5” unfinished.  I made them using a 4.5” x 2.5” rectangle of a dark fabric and two 2.5” squares of my background fabric (the orchid print). I pieced them into flocks of six, with three geese flying in from the left and three flying in from the right.

After laying out the blocks and sashing, I decided to make additional flying geese for the border, but to pair the geese with 4.5″ cornerstones and simple 4.5″ squares of the background fabric.  

My finished quilt measures 52.5”x 68.5” It contains:

• 12 Friendship blocks
• 148 flying geese
• 20 cornerstone blocks cut from a special fabric (Endless Summer by Monika Forsberg)
• 22 plain squares of the background fabric

I pulled these fabrics from my stash and they are quite a diverse mix, but a lot of the darker prints are from Anna Maria Horner and Monika Forsberg; most of the light prints and orchid the background print are from Carolyn Friedlander.

Many thanks to my guild-mates Dorie, Ann, and Christina for weighing in on my project’s design as it came together! I love making things with other makers around to help shape it and cheer me on!

I hope my instructions were clear! Please let me know if you have any questions and tag me and/or use #wildguyquilt if you make a quilt like this!