How to Sew Flying Geese

I know some of you who did my last mystery challenge did lots of flying geese and probably got sick of doing flying geese at the end. But there was a method for doing fast flying geese and that's how to make four flying geese at one time. And so that's what I'm going to show you right now. Now a lotta times, a pattern will give you the size of the blocks, the large squares and the small squares for making flying geese. 'Cause a flying geese is made up of two half-square triangles and one quarter-square triangle. Now your remember, a half-square triangle is a square cut in half once. And a quarter-square triangle is a square cut in triangles twice. Okay. And then the straight of grain on the quarter-square triangle is the long edge and the straight-of-grain on the half-square triangles is the two long edges. But instead of cutting them up and putting together, you're going to use them as they are. And we're gonna be doing something with these four blocks. Now there is a formula. If you wanna know what the formula is for cutting these flying geese and flying geese are shaped so that the long side and the short side, there's a formula for that. The short side is half of the long side. So it could be a two-by-four flying geese or a 2 1/2 by five or three by six. So the way you figure out what the size you need to cut is, you do it based on the finished size of the block. So you take that large square is the finished long side. That's the long side of the flying geese. And you add a 1 1/4 of an inch, okay? The short side, which is the half-square triangles, is the narrow side of the flying geese block. And that you add 7/8 of an inch. So, for an example, if you have a 2 1/2 by five inch finished flying geese, you would cut the large square at 6 1/4, because it's five plus 1 1/4. And you'd cut the four small squares at 3 3/8, which is 2 1/2 plus 7/8 of an inch. But if you had a three-by-six inch finished flying geese, you would cut the large square at 7 1/4. That's six plus inch and 1/4. And you'd cut the four small squares at 3 7/8. So that's three plus 7/8 of an inch. So that's the basic formula for flying geese, okay? So here I have my large square and I have my four small squares already cut. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna draw a line through these small squares. And since it's a dark fabric, I'm going use a light pencil. And you could even use, if you wanted to, use a mechanical pencil because these lines get cut off and they're not gonna show, or you can use a pen. Sometimes I've used a pen. But you wanna make sure you draw the line right down the center. Okay, of all four of the squares. You wanna take. When you using a pencil, you wanna take in account the width of that lead so that it goes right through the center. Okay? Now sometimes, in order to keep the fabric from moving, I will take my two squares, put them on top of each other. Sometimes it makes it easier to draw on when you do that. So let's see if that works a little better. Okay. So make sure you draw the line on the wrong side. This is a batik. So there is no wrong or right side. But I'm drawing a line on whichever side it is. Okay. So I've drawn my line. And now what we're gonna do is we're going to lay our squares, small squares, on the big square like this. So that they go through the opposite sides and make sure you line up the edges of the square perfectly because that really affects whether these flying geese come out right or not. Okay. I'm gonna line up both squares perfectly on the edges of the square. And you wanna make sure that these lines go through each other. And I'm gonna take some pins and I'm just gonna pin the edges down so that they don't move when I'm sewing. Okay. So I'm gonna pin those, that side. And then I'm gonna pin the other side. Now I'm gonna do one little trick here. See where this comes together right here? I'm gonna clip those so that they don't overlap. And so that there's no fabric that's gets on top of each other. Okay. So that they're gonna stop. See how they're just kind of go together that way? Okay. But I'm gonna add some pins over here too 'cause I wanna hold down those edges. So when I'm sewing, they don't move around on me. Okay. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna sew a quarter of an inch on each side of this line. So I'm gonna put on my quarter-inch foot, and I'm gonna sew down one side. And make sure I get it lined up right. Okay. And if it's a little smaller than 1/4 inch, you're better off than being a little bigger than 1/4 of an inch. Okay, so now I'm gonna sew. 1/4 an inch from one side of the line. Move my pin if I have to. Hold those lines together And then I'm gonna turn it around and I'm gonna sew 1/4 of an inch on the other side of the line. Okay. Now I'm going to cut my threads. Gonna take my pins out. And then I'm gonna cut these apart right on that line that I drew. Okay. And I cut these little threads off here. Okay. And I'm just gonna finger press these up. You're gonna press these little triangles up. Just like that. So you're gonna have two sets of triangles that look like this. Okay? So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna take our other two triangles, other two squares, I'm sorry. And we're gonna put them on the corner that's left. And we wanna make sure that this line goes right through the center of these two triangles here. So I'm gonna put some pins on this to hold this. Okay. Do the same thing with this one. Again, make sure you line up the edges of the square. The big square and the little square perfectly. And now, again, I'm going to sew on a 1/4 an inch from each side of this line. Now my goal is to get my machine to start here at this little, where these two come together and the same thing here. So let's start sewing. And I can do one right after the other. I'm gonna it around. Sew the other side. And then I can do this one the same way. Just pull the other one outta the way. Turn that one around. Cut my threads. Okay, and then I can clip them apart. Take my pins out. And then I'm going to use my rotary cutter and I'm gonna cut these apart. And then I have my flying geese. And I have four flying geese at the same time and they all come out exactly the same. Come out with 1/4 of an inch seam at the top. And if you have to make a lot of flying geese with the same fabric, It just makes putting together so much quicker. So the next time you have a pattern that calls for lots of flying geese, try this method and you'll find that you get more flying geese than you'll ever want.