Thursday, July 4, 2013

Happy 4th and a Tutorial


The end of June was bearing down on me, and I still hadn't made the June blocks for my Farmer's Wife exchange. You know, you think "oh big deal, I only have to make six of these - I should be able to whip them out in a couple hours" but it never seems to work out that way.  The other thing bearing down was the eminent arrival of house guests, which would be taking over my sewing room for a week. So I knew I had to get on this, and get it done.



For June's block, I chose the Evening Star, mostly because its easy and April's block was a pain in the butt. Its also a really pretty block, imo.  And I'm in love with that blue fabric. To expedite things, I decided to employ a method for making flying geese I learned about ten or so years ago, from Linda Ballard at one of her Mystery Quilt retreats. I'll give instructions for a 2" x 3" finished flying goose unit. I'm new at this, so hopefully, it will make sense! Here goes:

From your background fabric, cut a square 1 1/4" larger than the finished width of your goose unit. So in this case, cut a  4 1/4" square of the blue fabric.

From your "goose" fabric, cut four squares, each 3/8" larger than the height of the goose unit. So in this case, cut four 2  3/8" squares from the light fabric.

Lay two of the "goose" squares on top of the background square, right sides together, lining up the corners like so:



 Now draw a line down the center of the two Geese squares:


Next, sew 1/4" from each side of the line:


As you can see, I'm doing more than one at a time. Remember, I'm trying to get these done fast!

Now cut them apart, on the drawn line,


and press them out toward the geese:


Now place another "goose" square on top of the unit, right sides together as shown, and draw a line down the center of that square:


Sew 1/4" from both sides of the line, and cut apart as shown:

Press out, and trim:

Perfect! There's no waste, and minimal trimming, which basically amounts to cutting the dog ears off.

What do you think? Does my tutorial make sense? Would you try this method? I encourage any and all comments and/or feedback - as I said, I'm new at this! And please let me know if you have any photography tips, particularly how to eliminate shadows and that annoying flash glare!

love,
Sandy



No comments:

Post a Comment