Flying Geese Mini Quilt

Hi! I'm Trina from Will Cook for Shoes. I'm excited to share with you my version of a mini quilt for Fort Worth Fabric's Mini Quilt Mania this month.

The fabric I chose for my mini quilt is a popular one - Day Sail by Moda. There's something about the colours that just makes me think spring, which I hope has arrived or is just around the corner no matter where you are reading this blog from. (Here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - we had a hint of spring a few weeks back, and then more snow and cold weather… but I think we are on the right path to warmer temps now!)

One of my favourite quilting techniques right now is flying geese (and we are seeing a lot of them return now that the weather is warmer) so I decided to make my mini quilt a bit of a flying geese "sampler" of sorts using a few different sizes and having fun with a bit of an improv technique to pull them together in this layout.

There are several different ways to make flying geese. You can use a cutting system to make pre-arranged sizes. We saw a variation on the flying geese with a paper piecing tutorial just recently on the blog here (for the record - I love paper piecing and flying geese paper piecing is very precise).

My method of choice for this mini quilt was to use a ruler to cut out my flying geese. It allowed me a bit more options for sizing. With this one little ruler, I can create flying geese with a finished size from 1" x 2" all the way up to 4" x 8". And it's super easy to use.

After you choose what size of flying geese you want to make (indicated in the yellow box), you move along the line for that section to the right and you will see another number. This number tells you what strip width your fabric should be.

For this particular flying geese, the finished size is 2" x 4".  The template indicates to cut the fabric strip with a width of 2 1/2 inches. When you lay your template on the fabric, you will see it fits perfectly and you can cut both sides to make your main piece.

To cut the side pieces, you rotate the template. The template will also tell you the strip width for these pieces (spoiler alert: it's the same size as for the main piece). Just remember when you are cutting these pieces that you need to cut one on the right side of the fabric and one of the wrong side of the fabric.

Piece everything together by lining up your main piece with the ride side piece first (right sides together) and stitch using a scant 1/4 inch seam. Press open (I pressed all my seams to one side for this project, side seams out). And then line up the left side piece, right sides together, and stitch with a scant 1/4 inch seam. Press open.

For my mini quilt project, I made four batches of four 2" x 4" flying geese sections. I made one large 3" x 6" unit, and then one unit of two 1"x 2" flying geese section, and one five 1"x 2" section. 

The fabric requirements for this are a 1/4 yard of each of the following (you will have leftovers for backing and binding):

• Daysail Cape May Navy
• Daysail Catamaran Grey
• Daysail Habor White
• Daysail Hatch Green
• Daysail Tiny Script Red
• Daysail Buoy Teal
• Bella Solid Moda White

Because this mini quilt was an improv, I played around with the layout as I prepared my sections.

As you can see, I auditioned pieces for the mini quilt. Moving them around and fitting them in till they felt just right.

To make this particular design, I added in some "white space" with the addition of fabric to some of the sections. 

I've indicated the measurements of the white fabric on the photo below.

The flying geese sections came together quickly and it was so much fun to play with them and piece them together. I found using scant 1/4 inch seams (even when piecing the flying geese units together) made for the nicest points on my geese.

Since this was a mini quilt, I knew I wanted to take some extra time and play around with some fun free motion quilting designs, too! I'm addicted to machine free motion quilting. I chose to echo the flying geese in a few of the white sections. And just played around with a few different designs, further adding to my "sampler" style.

My favourite part is always turning over my quilts to see the full free motion quilting detail. 

I absolutely love how fresh the fabrics make this mini quilt feel! I think the binding in the corresponding Buoy Teal really brings everything together. 

This mini quilt is now hanging up in my office at work and makes me think of spring. I can see a lot more flying geese quilting projects in the near future!

Don't forget to check back on the Fort Worth Fabric Studio blog all this month for more Mini Quilt Mania and you can find/follow me at at Will Cook for Shoes.