Flying Geese Single Block Tutorial

After four at a time Flying Geese last week here is the promised tutorial on making a single Goose block. While making them four at a time is much faster and wastes less fabric, if you are trying to use up scraps like me you might not have anything big enough to cut out the big square needed to make four geese at once. Or perhaps you actually only need one goose or you want them all in different colours, in which case this method would be more suited to you also. Even though you a cutting off excess fabric with this method it doesn't have to become waste, put them away in a container and use them again in another project. They are great for half square triangles, stitch and flip corners, or some fun crumb piecing.

So let's get to it!

Step one:

- First you'll need to cut your fabric. You need one rectangle the size of you finished goose plus a half inch seam allowance, and two squares the height of your cut rectangles. I wanted my finished goose to be 2 by 1 inches and so I cut my rectangle 2½ by 1½ inches, and my two squares 1½ inches.

- Turn your two squares wrong-side-up and draw a line diagonally from corner to corner. Place one of these squares on one end of you rectangle, right-sides-together.

Step two:

- Sew directly on top of your drawn line, or even better just slightly to the outside of the line, so that the side of the needle is just touching the outside edge of your drawn line.

- Cut the sewn corners off ¼ inch from the stitching line.

Step three:

- Fold sewn triangle up and press with iron.

- Place second square on second end of rectangle, ensuring the drawn line crosses the top of the previously sewn triangle.

Step four:

- Repeat the sewing, cutting and pressing as with the first side and your Goose is complete!

Your Flying Goose is now ready to be put into your border or bigger block as you choose. I made four of these geese to use as the points of the central star in this block:

Really the number of things you can do with flying geese is huge, so why not sew some up today and have some fun designing new blocks with them.

Happy quilting!