Tag: Flying Geese block

Posted in quilting

SAHRR 2023: Scrappy Geese

Posted on by Laura Kate

Anja, of Anja Quilts, suggested flying geese for Round 4 of this year’s Stay-at-home quilting challenge.

https://anjaquilts.blogspot.com/2023/02/stay-at-home-round-robin-round-4.html

I was feeling very much up to the task. Two years ago, during the SAHRR, the flying geese block was brand new to me. It didn’t go well. I made a bunch of them that ended up the wrong size. This year I wisely followed the tutorial of Quilting Jet Girl. She even provides a fabric cutting chart for all sizes of geese. Her technique yields four blocks at a time. Check it out:

https://quiltingjetgirl.com/2022/09/30/updated-four-at-a-time-flying-geese-tutorial-and-sizing-tables/

My particular take on the goose block has me cutting down my scrappy pineapple blocks to make the feature fabric of the goose block. This was a time-consuming task, but I was absolutely determined to make it work. Here is my first group of four:

Using the 2-inch wide block size will require 20 geese per side for my quilt. After experimenting with placement, I l felt that a continuous line of that many geese causes too much visual motion in the design. To break it up and create resting places for the eyes, I inserted plain gray squares. I also made a block of two geese in solid yellow at the border’s midpoint. This image shows the two resting spots sewn up with the scrappy blocks.

POOR BUNNY DOESN’T LOOK VERY CONFIDENT THAT I CAN PULL THIS OFF.

Okay, so here goes. This photo shows three completed borders.

View of the border from on point,

Close up of one border.

My quilt has now reached my desired width. For the 5th and 6th borders, I will be building up and down from the mid-point, inserting setting triangles as needed. Anyway, that’s the plan for now. It’s all an experiment, so subject to change.

To see what other quilters are making, follow the link to the Linky party.

https://anjaquilts.blogspot.com/2023/02/stay-at-home-round-robin-round-4.html

Posted in quilting

All These Geese – Twist their Tails

Posted on by Laura Kate
Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com

Here I am, for the third day, working on Round 3 of the Stay Home Round Robin quilt challenge. Yesterday I wrote about my efforts to assemble flying geese blocks – a technique that was brand new to me.

I started with a quilt that looked like this:

To line all four sides with Flying Geese blocks, I would need to make 48. Thinking about how much time and effort I had already spent and considering that I needed another 24 blocks, I decided to change the design of this border.

What if I turned the blocks 90 degrees, and let the long side go parallel to the quilt edge? And while I was twisting the blocks around, what would happen if I alternated the direction – turn one left, the next right, and so on.

So that’s what I did. I made up more blocks anyway, because I needed certain colors for the new plan. Ditching the bright green geese, I went with my current palette of blue-green, orange and gold.

The quilt is now too big to stick on my bulletin board, so I am photographing on the floor. Here’s my round with the first three sides finished.

And here is the finished round.

I grouped the orange and yellow geese toward the corners, where they can have a conversation with the plus signs. And I laid the blue geese near the sides of the pale blue octagon. The result of this layout is a path for the eye to move all around the quilt, guided by the color groupings.

I feel very pleased. Maybe, just maybe the results were worth the effort.

If you would like to visit other quilters who are working on Stay At Home Round Robin quilts, you can follow these links:

Posted in quilting

Goose Purgatory

Posted on by Laura Kate

It’s Week Four on the Stay at Home Round Robin. The prompt is Flying Geese block.

In the beginning, I was happy and excited. The flying geese block is one that I have never made, so this was going to be my opportunity to try it out. I had what I believed to be a good concept for this round. So what could go wrong?

I decided to make my geese 2 by 4 inches. To make it work, I needed to bring the quilt sides up to 24 inches. I sewed on a narrow border of flowered batik fabric.

This also helps to define the pale blue octagon – a secondary shape.

To get started with the Flying Geese, I viewed this video by Patches and Poodles for making them four-at-a-time.

4-at-a-time Flying Geese Tutorial (with video!)

Her instructions were crystal clear. On Tuesday I made the first group.

These looked just great. I calculated that I would need 12 units per side, for a total of 48. The realization of the quantity and time required gave me pause. I decided to get started the next day.

Today, I started by cutting lots of squares and sewing them into shapes using the technique I had learned on Tuesday. Soon I had quite a collection of geese.

Here they are sewn and pressed

The last step is to trim them to size. That’s when things started to go side-ways.

It seems that all of my lovely geese, over which I had labored for two hours, were 1/4 inch too small!!!!!!!! I had skipped over the instruction about pressing the seams open. Missing this step was enough to throw off the measurement that critical 1/4 inch. Thus began another three or four hours of re-working my flock of geese………………

By dinner time, I had managed to salvage about twenty -four goose blocks. A day has been spent and I am only half way done, with a wad of unworkable blocks left behind.

So I am bowed, but not beaten. I will go back into the fray tomorrow, starting with more fabric and a fresh rotary blade.