This months Focus Through the Prism Challenge is Flying Geese. I knew my color and knew I had a good selection of scraps in blue this month. Just didn't have an idea of what to do except a basic set of flying geese. But of course I wanted to go a little out of the box.
I decided to look on Pinterest and pinned lots and lots of flying geese ideas! I found 2 videos I really liked. One was on a quilt as you go method and the other was a Missouri star video. I decided to go with the Missouri star video and to adapt it to fit my needs. The pattern is "Flying Geese Log Cabin".
The video made a small block. The block is made of 2.5 inch strips and 2.5 inch squares. The block finished at like 8 inches, but I continued to make a 20 inch block.
For the fabric I used all blue scraps and the hand dyed blue fabric. I tried not to be picky about what I choose to go out on a limb and make it more scrappy.
The pattern is easy. You start by cutting 2.5 inch squares of the color you are going to use as your "geese". Draw a line from one corner across the square to the other corner of all of these. Then you cut 2.5 inch strips of the background fabric.
The first square is 2.5 inches. Lay the geese square on top. Make a half square triangle with these 2 squares. Then with the next row, start the next row on the upper side, like a log cabin. You will build this one in just one direction. When you finish the 2 sides of the block, add another geese block. Sewing on the line across the corner. This creates another geese.
Do this with every row sewing on just 2 sides and adding a geese to the corner until you get to the size you desire. I added 10 sets until I reached 20 inches. I made the last row the same color as my geese.
The backing is a big piece of blue dotted I used on the front. The free motion quilting is a little messy. I originally forgot to change the settings on my machine and the back stitches are a little loose. So I fixed the settings and continued to finish it in time. I stitched triangles like geese for 3 rows then added curved lines in the other rows like clouds. In the geese I made a 3 loop design.
For the binding, I made it scrappy. I hand sewed it on. I originally sewed it by machine to the wrong side. I did not have time to take it off and resew it, so I went ahead and hand sewed it down to the front.
I hate when I have to rush to finish something. Maybe this month, I will start early and be able to take my time with the mini quilt.
