Part Three

Wow, seeing all the different variations of colors and fabrics in everyone's blocks has been incredible.

This month we are working with some flying geese units and putting them together with a solid piece of background fabric to make "Flying Geese in a Row." Are you ready to fly?

The first tip I have for this block is when you sew your pieces together, make sure you're sewing one, or maybe two threads to the outside of your line. Start at the side of the block and sew to the corner.

Once you have the line sewn, before you cut the background fabric away, go ahead and finger press that seam back toward the background, using the background as a guide as to where the sides of the piece should line up.

Pull back the top of the corner triangle and trim the backgrounds to about a quarter-inch seam allowance.

Do the same for the other side. Once again, start at the side and sew to the corner. This time your "outside" of the line be on the opposite side, so pay attention to which side of the line that you need to adjust sewing your seam.

When you have all of your flying gees units made, go ahead and line them up on your surface in the order you want them to be in your block.

Flip the farthest right over its neighbor and so on. I always sew these with the seam that has the point on top, so that I can clearly see the intersection.

Maintaining your quarter-inch seam, sew towards that intersection. Adjust your seam if you need, to sew through the X of the other two seams.

I originally pressed the new unit away from the tip of the triangle. But then I realized that I would not be able to see my seams for the final step.

So I re-pressed the seams toward the tip of the triangles.

And then I made certain to sew through the intersection, with the 4-geese unit on top of the background rectangle.

The important thing is to not cut the tips of your triangles off when sewing your seams. If you have a tiny gap of background fabric showing, that is much better than cutting off the triangle tips.

And here are my blocks for this month, all pieced together.

Part 3 - Original

Part 3 - Tula Pink

Part 3 - Dark Autumn

I'm making 3 versions of this quilt, so you can see a variety of colorways, and because I'm a glutton for punishment. 😄

• Original Mystery: this version uses the fabrics I referenced in the instructions.
• Tula Pink: this version uses all Tula Pink fabrics, with the exception of the background fabric. I used a larger number of fabrics and mixed all kinds of colors together.
• Dark Autumn: this version uses a Fall-ish palette, with Moda's Grunge fabric in black as the background fabric - it definitely gives a very different effect.

If you're looking for the instructions for this part, check your email. The instructions will be sent out to all of the members of Lebanon Piecemakers, similar to the newsletter.

I will bring these blocks to our next meeting so you can see them in person, since photos often don't quite capture colors accurately. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at lissylaine@yahoo.com. I look forward to seeing everyone's blocks!

~Melissa