Scroll to the March 15 for the latest block download!
Welcome to our FREE 2026 Sew Along – Bona Fide BOM
Bona Fide is a 6-month Block of the Month (BOM) pattern. Download free monthly instructions to make this pretty throw-size quilt, 54″ x 54″.
Bona Fide Details
January 15, 2026, you can download pages 1-2 plus the front and back covers (as well as a free darling table topper pattern that has nothing to do with Bona Fide, but is too cute not to share). January is when you’ll get the fabric requirements and pattern overview. The monthly downloads for sewing the blocks will begin February 15.
Registration
If you already get our monthly emailed newsletter, then you’re ‘registered’. There is no subscription requirement. You can always come back monthly to download your instructions. The monthly email newsletter will only remind you (and provide a link) to return to this page for your download. If you do decide to subscribe, I promise to protect your email address as if it were my own. We hate spam too. Plus, we have an easy unsubscribe button at the bottom of every monthly email.
This is the pattern we’ll be making – FREE! No purchase required.
Choosing your Fabrics
Don’t really want a pink quilt? We have made this beauty in multiple color options. The January posting will have a gallery of Bona Fide color options for you to consider. The pattern also includes an appliqué leaf or breast cancer ribbon option for the border.
Come back January 15! Tell your quilting buddies! We’re so excited for the 2026 Sew Along – Bona Fide BOM!
June 15
Month 5 download already? Wow!! The year is just flying by. How have you been doing? Have you kept up with the monthly pace? Sew, friend, sew! We have just one more download after this one to complete the six month Bona Fide BOM quilt top.
A Tale of Two Versions
Let me explain why Lora’s pattern is different than your pattern. Originally, Bona Fide was made in a purple and a greenish-gray Civil War reproduction line. It was very pretty and our mother’s favorite. When the fabric line was no longer in print, Marcus Fabrics asked if we could recolor and promote for a breast cancer awareness line of fabric. We said, “Of course.” Bona Fide, printed in pink, is the latest version of the pattern. I didn’t even know there were any purple ones ‘out there’ anymore. Until this month. Lora was sewing from the original version.
Sewing Instructions
Month 5 includes some Corner Square Triangles blocks. If you’ve not made them before, check out our video tutorial below. The tutorial is for a different quilt project, but it is the same Corner Square Triangle block. Follow the cutting instructions for the Bona Fide Month 5 block.
This is the download link for the Pink Bona Fide. Download this one.
Lora’s Bona Fide
Lora has been sewing the monthly blocks just ahead of you. I’ve been doing all the writing and posting. We make a great team. This month, however, Lora did the photos, the blogging, as well as sewing the Month 5 blocks! She’s a rock star. It wasn’t until I received her files that I realized there was a key difference between the original Purple/Gray version and the current Pink version. There were fewer fabrics in the pink line so I made all the Corner Square Triangle blocks the same color instead of two colors, like Lora’s old copy.
You’ll have to read the rest with Lora’s voice in your head. 😉
How Many Seam Rippers Does It Take to Make a Quilt?
My Month 5 units were done. I had sewn my Corner Square Triangle units, carefully laid out my blocks according to the diagram. Sew, press, and done!
I placed them next to my quilt on the design wall and added the corner blocks. Darn and double darn—they were wrong!
Back in Month 4, my Diamond Cut block didn’t turn out quite the way it was supposed to. But I still liked it, so I didn’t rip it apart and start over. However, in Month 5, my orange Corner Square Triangle units were supposed to alternate colors with the corner blocks. A little detail I missed until everything was up on the design wall—and I did not like it at all!
Well, as our grandma used to say, “If it’s not right, it’s wrong.” (Lisa – I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was very wrong – a whole version wrong.)
Time to seam rip.
I have quite a collection of seam rippers. Some are favorites, and some are backups for when my favorites roll off the table, disappear under a pile of fabric, or mysteriously vanish into the quilting abyss. Truth be told, I need them all. Hehehe! 🤭
So tell me—how many seam rippers do you own? Which is your favorite?
(Lisa – Do you see Lora’s pattern in the picture below? Yep, the pattern is the old version.)
So what would you do? Tell Lora and have her use one of her million seam rippers to make it look like the pink pattern version? Nah. It looks great. I’ve attached the old Purple/Gray version in case you’d like to make your Corner Square Triangles in two fabric colors too. Shhh. Don’t tell Lora.
Be sure you’re downloading the version you want! The above is the OLD original version Lora used. Scroll back up a bit for the PINK current version to download. Either version will work perfectly fine with your project. Have fun!
May 15
This is coming along so nicely!! If you haven’t downloaded the previous months, no worries. The links will remain active until the end of the year, December 31, 2026. You can scroll through and download what you’ve missed or lost ;).
Download the center block today, plus directions to assemble the quilt top and add the inner border.
The center block is the Diamond Cut block. The contrast and value of the fabrics used for the Half Square Triangles, give the block dimension, shape, and that signature diamond-cut appearance.
A note from Lora:
Good grief! My wonderful past self, read, studied the pattern, carefully selected the fabrics, cut, and prepped the block (Yay, past self!). My rushed present self, without even looking at the pictures of the pattern, rearranged the selected fabrics and started sewing. When it came to arranging the block, it wasn’t going to look like the beautiful diamond block that Lisa design. Augh. However, it is pretty. So I kept it. The rows went together quickly, I love my inner border fabric and am currently prepping the next step for my future self. This time I think I will leave future self a sticky note that says REREAD THE PATTERN!! 🤣🤣🤣
April 15
Are you ready for the next block? Though this block doesn’t appear fancy and maybe not that interesting, yet it is the backbone of the Bona Fide design. The chain element in this block lends structure and serves to enhance the other blocks of Bona Fide. You’ll make four of the Irish Chain Sawtooth blocks this month.
Download the instructions to this block.
Check out Lora’s progress on her Orange/Black version of Bona Fide. It is looking good! In the instructions for Flying Geese, it says to draw a diagonal line from corner to corner then sew 1/4″ on both sides of the diagonal line. Lora’s tip is to use an Omnigrid 1/2″ ruler (Amazon link not affiliated with Material Girlfriends). It is a handy tool that comes in three lengths! Draw two lines instead of one, then sew on the line. Lora finds it more accurate if she sews on the line instead of 1/4″ from the center. See her picture below.
March 15
It always amazes me how different a block can look when the color placement is changed. These two pretty blocks are both the Memory Block. This block was first recorded in Practical Needlework, 1906 by Clara Stone. By changing the color combinations, this block has so much versatility!
Download your instructions for Month 2 here.
Share your blocks on our Facebook Group, Material Girlfriends Gang!
February 15
Time to sew! Were you able to select fabrics from your stash? Get ready to cut them up for the first month’s blocks.
Cutting the Flying Geese Units
Page 3 gives two sizes for the Flying Geese units. One is the Finished Size 4″ x 2″ and the other, Unfinished size is 4 1/2″ x 2 1/2″. Finished size is what it will measure once it is sewn into the block. Don’t trim to the Finished size! That will make your unit too small. We have a Flying Geese video to make four at a time. Check it out here, jump to the 11 minute mark for the four-at-a-time method.
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
This block is called Robbing Peter to Pay Paul. It was first published in the Ladies Art Company in 1897. It is a lovely block and looks very striking in the Bona Fide quilt.
Share your blocks on our Facebook Group, Material Girlfriends Gang!
January 15
Whohooo! We finally get to start. Thanks for waiting. Download the front cover, pages 1-2, and the back cover by clicking below. I recommend you use a three-hole punch and put the pages in a slim binder. You’ll be able to download the first month’s block on February 15. In the meantime, let’s roll up our sleeves and choose fabrics.
What Will You Choose?
As per our usual January goals, we want to sew out of our stash. I encourage you to shop your stash first. Then visit your local brick and mortar (or quilt show) to fill in the holes. Of course, you can shop online as well, but it is so difficult to match colors on a screen.
Bona Fide is a beautiful quilt. We’ve sewn it in a few different colorways.
The purple/gray version, called Putty and Mortar, was our first Bona Fide quilt to sew. Lora and I usually choose brighter palettes. However, our mother loves the gentle, aged fabrics of the Civil War era. Since Mom, Carolyn Wooldridge, helps us sew most of our sample quilts, we knew we needed to throw her a bone once in a while. She LOVED this line. Once we were done sewing and writing, we needed to come up with a name for the pattern. We couldn’t call it, Throw Mom a Bone so we decided on Bona Fide. It truly is beautiful in these Civil War hues.
One of our friends at Marcus Fabrics, Laura Berringer, designed a line called Soulful Shades and asked us to partner with her for Breast Cancer Awareness. Of course, we said yes! We add pink ribbon to both ends of the appliqué, modified and recolored Bona Fide in Laura’s Soulful Shades line. Marcus Fabrics offered this pink Bona Fide as a six-month Block of the Month program to quilt shops across the world. It was a successful program that raised money and awareness. That was in 2019.
Bona Bee
I had a collection of black, white, and yellow bee fabrics and knew Bona Fide was the quilt for this fun collection. I call this one Bona Bee. I love to fussy cut, and this pattern offers plenty of opportunities to fussy cut the centers of the blocks. Instead of doing the applique as designed, I fussy cut the flowers from the border fabric and appliqued them (second picture).
Lora’s Bona Fide
Lora is working on another Bona Fide, too! You know, when you have a favorite pattern, it just keeps drawing you back to make another.
This time, Lora selected some fabrics she had purchased from Verna Mosquera of the Vintage Spool. Verna is a local designer that we just don’t see often enough. We had a short visit in her booth at the Road to California show a few years ago when Lora scooped up a couple of prints from Verna’s pretty line called Candleabra. The lovely fabrics marinated in a basket for a bit and are now ready for a new Bona Fide project. Lora added additional grays and background fabric from her stash. This will be fun to watch grow over the next 6 months.
How to Choose Fabrics
What are you feeling? What are you in the mood for? What color are you drawn to? Go through your fabric stash (if you don’t have a stash, visit a quilt shop). Which fabrics and colors are your hands lingering over? Pull those out. Let’s build your quilt from that fabric.
Check out Page 2
Print out the Bona Fide download and check out page 2. Page 1 has information and history about the blocks you’ll be sewing. You can read that when you’re ready for a cuppa. Page 2 has the fabric selections. Basically, this is a two-color quilt, pink and gray. This will make it easier to substitute your color palette. Lora is substituting the orange for the pink. Below are some examples of swapping the colors.
If you don’t have enough fabric from your stash, scrappy up the colors. For example, choose multiple medium value blues to substitute for 1/3 yard of medium gray. The color value is important. When selecting your fabrics, take a picture with your smart phone, then edit the image to be gray scale. It is a good trick to see value instead of just the color.
We’d love to see what fabrics you choose. Share on our group Facebook page Material Girlfriends Quilting Gang!
