Flying Geese

Our July assignment for the Inspire Circle of do. Good Stitches was to use flying geese.  Thea will be putting together a boys quilt in orange and aqua, and a girls quilt in raspberry and citrine, along with white, navy or greys.  She has such great ideas!  I love these color combinations, and I had some good choices in the fabric stash already.

I've never done flying geese before, so this was another chance to expand my quilting horizons.  I've said it before, but I love being in a group like this circle where we get a new assignment each month.  Sometimes I get to learn a new technique, sometimes its a quilt block that I haven't tried before, and sometimes I stretch myself with new color combinations.  Its always fun, and the best part is that the blocks are put into quilts for charity.  That just makes you feel good inside!  To learn more about do. Good Stitches or to join, click on over to the main Flickr group.

Back to the geese.  Looking for inspiration, I found a recent edition of Quilter's World that had a pattern with flying geese in it. I followed the directions to make the geese and then improvised the sashing to bring it up to a 12.5 inch block.  The two shades of aqua make this block rather interesting, I think.

Then I remembered that Evelyn, a quilter in our circle, recommended using her favorite No Waste Flying Geese tutorial from Shannon at Pieceful Kwilter. This was super helpful, and my geese improved as I used the tutorial. Thanks to both Evelyn and Shannon! I like this one too, and the geese are tidier but I don't think it will work out very well in a full quilt because of the narrow sashing, so I get to keep this one.   It will probably become a pillow cover, or hang out in the WIP box until I find a good use for it.

On to the berry & citrine!  This time I made smaller geese using Pieceful Kwilter's handy sizing chart.  I really like this one, and my geese are getting straighter. It feels silly saying it, but bias really effects how tidy a block can be when it comes to piecing.   The citrine portions of this block are from Wildwood by Erin McMorris, which happens to use citrine, greys and berries all together. 

Can you tell I've become a fan of putting frames on my photos?  PhotoScape calls these frames Cali 11 and Cali 12.   Be sure to check out the No Waste Flying Geese tutorial at Pieceful Kwilter.  Its really helpful.