Four Ways to Sew Flying Geese Quilt Blocks
Where would we quilters be without Flying Geese quilt blocks? Those handy geese play an essential role in making so many other blocks, from North Star:
to Dutchman’s Puzzle:
They also really dress up a quilt border. Here’s a nifty little quilt that uses them for both the center and one of the borders.
A basic flying geese block consists of a larger triangle (the goose) surrounded by two smaller triangles (the sky.) Choosing fabrics with enough light-dark contrast is essential to make the geese stand out against the background of sky. If the goose fabric is dark, the sky should be lighter. If the sky fabric is dark, the goose should be lighter.
Four Ways to Make Flying Geese Blocks
All four of these methods produce a nice looking end result. Try them all and choose your favorite technique.
- This is the first way I learned to make flying geese blocks: from a rectangle and two contrasting squares.
- From Patchpieces.com, here’s a terrific way to make two identical Flying Geese Quilt blocks at one time from five fabric squares. It’s one of those clever quilting tricks I wish I’d thought of. (And since I haven’t thought of any, there are many clever quilting tricks that fall in this category.)
- You can also make a flying geese block from two half-square triangle blocks.
- This video by Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson shows how to sew dimensional flying geese with just one seam. The trick is in the way you fold the fabrics. This method is nifty, but uses more fabric than other techniques.
method #2 from Patchpieces.com actually makes ‘4’ identical FG….unless you use different fabrics for your smaller squares for that scrappy look.
its my favourite method by far. 🙂