3 Ways to Flying Geese - Michael Miller Fabrics' Making it fun #120

Hi Friends, Mike and I are so excited to show you three different

ways

to make the Flying Geese Quilt Block. They are ready? Let's get started and that's it, everyone welcome to make it fun again. We are doing any other basic patchwork delivery. I am your host. rob appel from

michael

miller

fabric very excited to be here we are working on three different

ways

to make

flying

geese

one of the simplest basic elements of many quilt designs quilt blocks you see me use it a lot around here and basically It's just an extension. of something we've done many times here before and that is the half square triangle, but as you can see on the screen, part of what we do is put them in a row.

Sometimes that's fun, so it looks like

geese

flying

through the air. but also what we like to do, you can see it's kind of a rectangle or two semi-square triangles put together, there's several different ways to attack this goose or pluck it, we'll call it for the rest of the day, that sounds good. my head, sorry, so I'll walk you through some of the basics. I'll comment a little bit about accuracy and precision and that kind of stuff while I'm heating up my iron and just take it very simple, real. slow, we're not going to waste much time, we're just going to learn the simple basic constructions in three different ways for these flying geese, of course we're using the beautiful fabric basics of Michael Miller, as we often do here when

making

them . fun, Michael Miller marble, a long time favorite of mine, comes in a variety of colors and I was inspired because a while ago we were doing this really fun block of the month and I was using some batiks and some of the basics . and I was using these were leftover squares and I promised I would use them and I'm using them and using them and this is one of the things we love to do if you're new to quilting we love using our scraps eat up our stock and that's why I really encourage so many people to buy the basics because the basics of those

fabrics

that just allow the rest of the theme of your quilt, the rest of the prints in your main design to really come to life.

They are things like solids, microprints like a garden dot or cocoa textures. We have a new one coming out called fresh, which was released on April 4th, which is awesome, it was just a few weeks ago so I know I'm getting it anyway. everyone distracted talking about

fabrics

and beautiful things, which is partly hopefully while you're here, so let's get back to the tutorial creating a flying goose. The first one here today will look like this and I'm going to point out if you can't. look very closely, there is already a seam in the middle. I've made half square triangles before, probably ad nauseam at this point, so we're not going to talk about how we got there, we're just going to start with these two half square triangles. which are trimmed to three inches square so we can put them together and I'm going to use this is my neutral or background fabric.

The prints will be Michael Miller's marble today, so I'm going to turn it around. I'm going to line this up with my seams and I'm going to go over to my sewing machine, we're going to use a quarter inch seam allowance, by the way, we're quilting, a little start running along the edge and then The simple part of this is that we're just going to walk over to the ironing board and now I'm going to press to the side and you can see that I just took two half square triangles and put them together to create one.

Flying goose now, what's also important is that we need to make sure that we respect this quarter inch up here because eventually it's going to join this way to this and we want our tips, we want our points to be as precise and as pointed as possible if You're looking for precision in your quilt construction, so the first way to make a flying goose is to start with, like I said, your two half-square triangles, sew them together and you'll have a seam down the middle and that's not a big problem with our wonderful jet black color, but it would possibly be a problem if you were using a print, especially a directional print, because that's going to start to affect the actual design, so you might want to stay away from super simplistic. half square triangle scrap burner, flying goose and let's move on to the more traditional method which is a rectangle and two squares, talking about the basics of mathematics here today and when we are done, all three methods will make a flying goose of the same size, so we have matching geese right now you're looking at a five and a half by three inch rectangle on the table these are three inch squares we remember independently we need an overlap here we're quilting we're dealing with a quarter inch that's why this is half an inch smaller than these two squares combined, that's the basic math regardless of what size we're

making

because our starting point is that we will have drawn a diagonal line from one point to another on the square that the square needs to fit into our rectangle so that the three sides one, two and three coincide, so it was a three inch rectangle, three inches by five and a half and a three inch square, so this is where we start, we are going to make one in There came a time here and now that chalk line is going to be our sewing line, so I'm going to sew facing the middle of my presser foot at this particular chalk line and because I'm sewing right on the chalk line and That chalk was drawn with the greatest possible precision.

In fact, now I'll tell you before the end of the video. I won't make you wait until the end. In fact, I think this is the most accurate of the three methods I'll show you today. Sorry, the first one is equally accurate, but it takes too long to do the first one. It's not going to do it anyway, so let's move on, okay, cutting some thread, let's get this out of here because this is the key to the next step before. We can sew the second square, we need to cut it out and press it, so I'll use my ruler and my cutter to protect my hand.

You could do it freestyle, but don't do it. Now here's the next trick when we get to the ironing. surface, I'm going to press from the rectangle toward the square moving all of the bulk of the seam toward the square side or away from the center. Now some people will take the time to press that seam open, but we don't do that here. to make it fun, so now let's go back to the example at hand, step two, I'm going to take the other square and place it here again lining up the three sides that count one, two and three, the outer ones, making sure that I'm forming that V shape to make the flying goose and now I can start anywhere, but I'm going to do the exact same thing.

I'm going to stitch the center of that chalk line that comes out of the machine. Now I'll cut the fourth. inch seam allowance to protect my hands and my work. I have more leftovers. You could take them and turn them into smaller half square triangles and start the whole process again from the rectangle to the square to get what I'm going to call a A very nice goose, so here we have another point where we honor our quarter inch. Remember we just did that one together using the half square triangles. They are basically exactly the same size.

Okay, there's a little more flexibility in this because of the way it's built, like I said, I feel like this is a very, very precise way to do it, but I only get one flying goose for all those steps and I have waste, So now I'm going to share with you what we've done. Considered the magic flying geese block or the zero-waste flying geese method, the math gets a little complicated so I'll try not to overdo it, we'll see how it goes, but this time we'll start with one square and four smaller ones. squares, so the square is the background fabric, the smaller squares are the patterned or designer fabric, considering we still wanted something that would yield five and a half inches by three inches wide, let's use that number three, focus on that for a minute. the square is now six and a quarter or two times three plus the quarter these little squares are now three and three eighths which we've talked a lot about in other videos the math of the diagonal and how to get there, but that's where that extra eighth comes in. so as a reminder, now we're starting with a larger square, six and a quarter, and then these squares are three and three eighths, so technically, what's going to be three eighths and three eighths, six eight, so that's three quarters larger versus half larger when we're done though, now we've marked diagonals on the back of these four and let's start with this, now there's a couple of different ways to skin this or pluck this goose, so? what are we going to do eventually?

What I need to do is sew this square and then this square using our chalk line as a guide, sewing a quarter inch on either side of this mark right now, so I've seen this done with a lot of pins, but I find it bulky and it takes a lot of time remember we're going for efficiency and zero fabric waste in this example, so what I like to do is just set it up and make sure everything is good. Let's leave these two aside for now, we're just looking too. small or printed and the background large now if you can safely carry this to your sewing machine this way I would recommend it.

You might even want to put a pin in the bottom square just to hold it in place, but I'm just going to focus right now. on this top square, making sure my outside edges are lined up nicely and I'm going to drop the presser foot, giving me a quarter inch seam allowance on that first chalk line, now the second square down here is just floating while I'm . getting closer and closer. Now I'm going to stop for a moment and recalibrate. I'm going to go ahead and line up the corners of the block and I'm really going to make sure that that chalk line looks really nice there. a finger or a stiletto or something like that at that point just as the presser foot reaches it and then bingo, we've got it, it's secured and I'm going to continue with my quarter inch seam allowance all the way.

The nice thing about this example is that we can chain a piece, so I'm just going to rotate. Remember we are not being efficient in any way so I am not even wasting the bobbin thread or top thread if I turned the block 180 degrees or the other way for those of me who hate math and like to quilt. I also stitched just above the top area. I hope you saw where the two blocks or the two small squares came together and now we have put two complete squares. Okay, sew on both sides. Now definitely use your rule to protect your work.

I'm going to go ahead and just place it right above that chalk line and we're going to cut this open and at this point we've got half of our job done, go to your ironing board and press again. from the background fabric or the big square to the small squares, this again is managing that seam or the bulk of where everything is going to come together, it looks like this, let me get this one for us real quick here, maybe you can see it on the part later. Here's what I was referring to, so pressing those little squares now we're going to handle them each individually, where I'm going to take one more square for each one and drop it where I've matched them again. this side and this diagonal side running out and I'm going to start at the tip versus maybe between those two blocks I just like this, I don't know why for the first one, but we're going to do the same thing We're going to sew our seam allowances of a quarter of an inch on either side of our chalk line and the reason I say this may not be as accurate is that the chalk line could shift slightly and we are sewing on both sides instead of just above it and so there is a little more room for error, but we can be super efficient and chain join this part too, so while I'm back at my table or layout wall, I'm going to take this one more time to make sure my outside edges match up and turn.

Place it so it's facing each other's directions and go ahead and sew on one side of that quarter inch seam allowance as well, but make sure you don't sew it into the first or last set of work you were doing. He is friendly. tight inside and out. I just used the thread cutter on the machine. Now I have to rotate, so I'm at the top, but I already secured everything. I'm going to drop the presser foot so it stays. a little bit beyond sewing the whole job following that chalk line as a quarter inch guide and again attaching chain pieces as we started very very quick and easy as this method is also quite precise I will say and often too can be trimmed. down a little bit if necessary, so let me show you what they look like, but before we can open them we need to cut them one more time, so I'm going to cut on the same guide line that the chalk line goes to the ironing board and I'm going to press from the rectangle or the background fabric to my square and the really nice thing about this is that the efficiency comes fromWe just made four flying geese in about the same time I was making one before, so it's pretty fantastic.

It's time to slow down and trim all the dog ears and that's when we can square them with a ruler and trim them. I'll show you that here in a second, so there's a little bit of loss and efficiency there and I'll do that as well. my eyes say at this age, which I won't mention, I don't love eight inch marks on the ruler and that's one of the places where I have to slow down when cutting and it takes those eight inch marks to make all mathematical works. So I still think the rectangle and two squares is my personal favorite, but anyway this is another great way to do it, so look at this dog here, this is probably the worst one I can get any kind of wave on. things changed a little bit, but if I just go for three inches, I'll line up here, trim here and double check my work, my little bump, what happens There's less than an eighth of an inch, which means I can still secure that little messy spot with a quarter inch seam allowance, making it a perfectly acceptable flying goose among the four, taking the time to trim the rest of these. dog ears and I'll just show you that even this one here here's the one with the seam in the middle here's where ours is with oh there's the one without the seam in the middle they're all the same size they're all incredibly usable and functional, you could even make fabrics of different designs on the same quilt because all the math still works together and it could make it sometimes easier to make the triangles four by two, two by two, or half square.

I'm not sure, but Just know that I love to teach you all some of these tricks, tips and techniques that I have learned over years and years of being blessed as a professional quilt maker and presenter, so until next week when Let's see them all here with another one. fantastic tutorial, please keep practicing your patchwork, stay safe, happy sewing and see you next time to make it fun. Wow, you're still there, thanks for staying with me until the end of the video. I know I get a little wordy sometimes, but if you enjoyed today's video, be sure to check out some of the others we've created.

I think they're fantastic and of course subscribe to the channel. Be sure to press the bell to receive a notification. I don't want to. You will miss out on a fun time, stay safe and happy sewing.