Flying Geese Quilt Tutorial

Flying geese have long been a popular unit in quilts, both in traditional quilts and they remain popular today in many modern quilts. Flying geese are basically a configuration made with three triangles, one large in the center and two on the side that create a rectangular-shaped unit. I'm going to show you several methods for making them, but first, the reason for making them is because they can add motion to your quilt. You can see in the quilt that I have here, it's called Geese Over Manhattan. The idea of this quilt was that when you lay on your back in Central Park and look up, you see the geese, often migrating one direction or another, or perhaps circling Central Park.

And when they look down, they see the park. So this is called geese over Manhattan. What you can see in this is the motion that flying geese can add to your quilts. They can really suggest to the person looking at your quilt, look this way, look this way. And they add a lot of nice motion to what's going on in your quilt.

They also are often what's used to create the star point on many popular star quilts. So learning to make flying geese is the same as learning to make star points. And you will find a lot of uses for those, as well as for the flying geese unit used as you see it here. Now, there are a number of methods for making flying geese, and I'm gonna show you several of those. And there isn't one that's the best way.

There are some that will suit each project better than others. And there's some that will suit the way you like to work better than some others will. So we're going to start out with probably the most basic way of making a flying geese unit. And we do that with three pieces, a rectangle and two identical triangles. Usually when you're making flying geese units, there will be a contrast between dark and light because you want the point, either you'll want the center point to show out kind of like an arrow head pointing away, or you want the edges to stand out as points on a star.

So in either case, you usually want that contrast. So I've chosen two fabrics that are light and dark. So as we work, you'll be able to see those contrasts that you'll be seeking as you make flying geese units. Now we're going to be making a flying geese unit that in the finished quilt will be six inches wide by three inches deep. So six by three, which means that we need to have it finished with raw edges at 6 1/2 by 3 1/2.

So we cut the piece that will be the center triangle. We're going to cut it as a rectangle. And we're going to cut it 6 1/2 by 3 1/2. Then we're going to cut our triangles to add to the quilt. And we're going to cut those like we would cut half-square triangles.

We're going to cut them the finished size plus 7/8 of an inch. So they are going to be 3 7/8 inches square. The way we're going to work with these are we're going to start on one side, and we're going to match our raw edges on three sides. And you'll see that it goes a little bit over the middle here. Once we've done that, then we're going to, through the center of that, we're going to draw a diagonal.

And so that you remember which direction to draw the diagonal, just always remember that that center is going to be your center triangle. You're going to draw your diagonal line. Be sure you use a marker that will wash out. And then you're going to stitch 1/4 inch from each side of your diag, I'm sorry, you're going to stitch along your diagonal line. So many times we stitch on either side, but in this particular case, we actually stitch right on that diagonal line.

The next step after we've stitched that is that we're going to trim that seam. We're going to trim off all this extra here that we don't need. So you simply are going to leave 1/4 inch. Line it up on your ruler at 1/4 inch, and then you're going to trim off that extra. You can save that for a future project, if you like.

And then you're going to press this out. You're going to press it away from the center. And once we have that piece, we're ready to add the second piece. And so the next step that we're going to take is to put the other square on the other corner, again, matching raw edges on three sides. And we're gonna draw the diagonal.

Again, remembering to get that triangle in the center so you get your diagonal in the right direction. We're going to stitch along the stitching line as we did before. And we're gonna do exactly the same trim that we did before. We're going to trim it down to 1/4-inch seam. And as we did before, we're going to press that out.

And once we've done that, you can see that we have a finished flying geese unit for our quilt. And you can see that has the strong arrow in the center. Had we wanted it to be star points, we would have reversed the dark and the light fabrics. So that's a very, very basic way to make a flying geese unit. Now, often in quilts, we need more than one flying geese unit.

So many people have figured out the math of how this all works and they've created various systems by which we can make more flying geese. I'm gonna share one that appears in a new book by Beth Ferrier that I thought was really quite clever. And that is we're going to start out. We're gonna start out with a square of fabric, a large square of fabric, and then we're going to cut two, we're gonna actually cut additional, three additional squares here. In the end, we'll actually use four of these smaller squares.

We're going to start by we're going to line these up on the quilt. And so we're going to put one quilt square at the bottom, lining up with the bottom left corner, lining up with the raw edges. And we're gonna put a second one lining up with the top right corner. Then using a straight edge, we're going to draw a diagonal from that corner to this corner. Now you will see there's a little overlap of the fabrics in the center, the squares in the center.

Not a problem. You simply are gonna sew through that. So you're going to draw your diagonal line. Now once you have that drawn, you're going to stitch 1/4 inch on either side of that diagonal line. So you can see here, here's our diagonal and we've stitched on either side of the line.

Our next step in doing this is that we are going to cut on that diagonal line so that we will end up with two pieces. Now these are kind of unusual looking pieces. You've not probably very often seen a piece that looks like this. So just stay with the process because you look at it and you think, how's that gonna turn into flying geese units? But I assure you that in fact it will.

So we're going to have those two pieces. And the next thing that we are going to do with those pieces is we are going to press the dark side away from the lighter side. So you can do each triangle separately. You're gonna press one out, and then you're gonna press the other one out. And now we have a piece that looks a bit like a stair-step.

And you will end up with two of these from the process. You're going to have two that look like that. You're going to take one of those. And you're going to, with that one, you're going to take another one of our squares. You're going to line it up on the corner of the square with the raw sides.

You want to have the points facing out. So you're lining it up in the half of what started out as our large square. You're going to take your straight edge, and you're going to draw the diagonal across this new block that you've added. Once you've drawn that, you're going to then stitch on, you're going to then stitch. You have the line.

You're going to stitch on 1/4 inch either side of the line. Your line that you drew becomes your cutting line. So we're going to go in and we're going to cut these apart. As I said, it really is an unusual looking construction. I think it's amazing how Beth figured out how to do this.

But as you look at the piece that you've cut, you will now see that you simply need to press this away. And we end up with a flying geese block. And you will do some trimming up of it. And once you've trimmed it up, you need to end up with a flying geese unit that is 6 1/2 inches wide by 3 1/2 inches deep, which as I said earlier, when it goes into your quilt, it will be six by three. So a rather ingenious method of turning out some flying geese units.

And you actually end up with four flying geese units using Beth's method. Now there's another way of doing flying geese. This one's also a bit intriguing. And this is one that I first learned from a book by Eleanor Burns. And in this one, you cut to get, again, we're going to still work with the same size flying geese unit, one that finishes at six by three.

To do that, we're going to start with a nine-inch square and a 7 1/2-inch square. And we're going to center that, the smaller square within the larger square. And once we've done that, then we're going to draw a diagonal line. We're gonna go from the top right corner to the bottom left corner. And we're gonna draw the line down the center.

And I've also drawn here, as you'll see, stitching lines 1/4 inch from either side. You can draw the stitching lines if you want. You may prefer just to use your 1/4-inch foot to do that. But you're going to then stitch 1/4 inch away from each side of your center line. And your center line then becomes your cutting line.

So you are going to then cut these apart along that line. So you're just gonna make your cut right up that line. And you're going to have what look like two large triangles. Your next step with this process is going to be, with those two triangles, you're going to press those triangles open, and you're going to press them to the larger block. In this case, that happens to be the darker piece.

But if you'd made your lighter piece the larger one, you do want whichever you're doing, you want to press towards, you're going to press towards the larger of the two triangles that you now have. And now you're going to have, you're going to have this unit. You're actually going to have two of those units. And you can see that here, that we have two of those units. So you're going to lay one down with the triangle, the larger triangle facing you.

And you're going to lay them not the same. You're not going to be matching seams here. You're going to actually turn the other one the opposite direction. You're going to turn it so that the larger square is away from you and the other one is toward you. And then using your straight edge, you're going to draw a line from the top down, going through from the dark into the lighter fabric in front of you.

Once you have done that, you are going to then stitch 1/4 inch from either side of that center line. And just as before, it's a pretty amazing process, isn't it? Just as before, you're going to cut this apart along that center cutting line. And now you've got two units. And these two units are going to come out looking a bit like this.

Now this is an interesting looking configuration, and you probably start to wonder, what can I do with this configuration? But what you're going to do is you need to first of all do the pressing of the seams. And you want to press towards the dark seams. So you're going to take it in its folded state. You're going to fold it in half where that meets with your scissors.

You're going to clip it. And you're only clipping right up to the stitching. Be sure you don't clip through the stitching. You're only gonna clip right up to the stitching. And now you're ready to press it.

And when you press it, you're gonna press towards the dark, and go just about to the middle. And then you're going to turn it. And you're going to press towards the dark here. And because you've made that clip in the side, you're going to now turn it over and check. And you're just gonna flatten out that middle.

But as you can see, what clipping it did was doing the clip made it so you could press these in opposite directions halfway down that seam. And that you'll see as you go along is going to help it lay flatter. You can see, when we're pressing our flying geese units, we want to have the seams away, always pressed away from that center triangle. And so that's what we end up with here. Now that we have this, Eleanor Burns has designed a really nifty little tool which is called her flying geese ruler.

And we're gonna use the flying geese ruler to make the final cuts to our piece. And so we're going to turn our piece this way. And we're going to line up our flying geese ruler. Now this, the flying geese ruler, she actually has it in several sizes, and each size has multiple size flying geese on it. But you do have to select a ruler that is the size you want.

So I have selected the one that will finish at six inches by three inches. I'm going to line up the lines that you see on the ruler, the green lines in this case, 'cause that's the three by six size. I'm gonna line those up with my seams. And then I'm going to trim the right side. And I'm going to trim across the top.

And now you can see, I have two pieces. And then I'm going to turn it. And again, I'm going to line it up. This time it's gonna be, I'm gonna be looking at the arrow pointing the other direction. I'm gonna trim again the right side and what's now across the top.

And I'm going to come out with a flying geese unit ready to go into my quilt that will measure 6 1/2 by 3 1/2, which will finish at six by three. And this particular method will produce for you two flying geese units. As I said, a rather ingenious way. It does take a little bit of math to be able to accomplish some of these methods. Now I'm a fan of foundation piecing.

If I can piece on paper, I love to do so because for me, piecing on paper gives me very accurate corners and all my units end up the same. So one other way to do flying geese units and one that if you need to do with lots of color variation like you see in the quilt behind me, you can see there's very few units that are identical. There's many different color combinations. So I had to do each one one at a time. So to do the foundation, you can start out with a piece of foundation piecing paper.

And you're going to draw on your foundation piecing paper, you're going to draw the size of your finished piece, which is your six by three. That's my inside box. Then I'm going to add the 1/4 inch all the way around. Now, an easy way to do this is if you have a light table, and I'm working with transparent vellum. You can see through this pretty easily.

I can put graph paper underneath and then drawing this becomes easy. You can also do the measurements, but the graph paper makes it really, really simple. Once I have my size, then I'm going to put the lines for the flying geese stitching lines. I'm going to put those inside where I'm going to want to stitch. And then I'm going to actually create a template for cutting out my fabric.

I'm going to make a template that is a bit larger than the actual piece I need to do. For my background, I'm going to just use a rectangle. But for these corners, I'm going to create the template for cutting my fabric. And I'm going to do that using template plastic, transparent template plastic you can see through. I'm going to put it on there, draw the triangle.

And then for foundation piecing, we add the 1/2 inch all around. This is what I'm gonna use then to cut out my corners. This you can see is how I've cut that out. Oftentimes we avoid foundation piecing because we waste a lot of fabric. This process helps us use a little less fabric.

Still a little more than other methods, but less than if we just cut big hunks, which a lot of people do when they foundation piece. This also keeps it on green. So that's how we're going to get that. Now for each of our units, we're going to need the rectangle, which is the size 6 1/2 by 3 1/2. And then we're going to need two of the other triangles.

So we're gonna be working with three pieces of fabric. And then we're going to be working with our foundation unit that we created. So the beginning is we're going to take the foundation unit. We're going to put down, and remember you work on the wrong side. Here's where you've drawn it.

You work on the wrong side. Now with this particular block, it doesn't matter. It's symmetrical. So you don't have to worry about reversing it and being sure it comes out right. You're going to put, let me go right here.

You take our foundation. We turn our foundation so the right side is down. And we're going to put then our center piece. We're using a rectangle exactly the size of our foundation. We're going to put that down, and then we're going to line up the first of our outside triangles.

We're going to put it right sides together because we're going to stitch, and then we're going to flip on it. So we're going to put this down. We will then, when we go to our sewing machine, we will stitch on this line. When we have that stitch together, the next step, as you can see, we have it stitched together here. We come back, we turn it under and we trim, just as always do trim.

We trim off that corner. And now we're ready to press it out. We're going to press it away. You can see now that we have our, we have one of our two corners on our flying geese unit. And now it's time to put the second one on.

We're going to, in the same fashion, we're going to put this piece on. We're going to put it here because we want it to come out. It's always good with foundation piecing just to put it back, be sure you're getting it right. We're going to put it in place. We're going to stitch along this line.

Once we've stitched along that line, we'll have the piece that looks like this and we've stitched. And once it's stitched together, we are going to turn back the paper. We're going to trim our seam again. And then we're ready to press it out. We press it out.

And when we've pressed it out, we're a little bit large here. The very final step that we're going to use, we're going to trim it. We're going to leave in our 1/4 inch seam because that's what we're gonna need to join it into our quilt. And we're going to simply trim around all the edges on the 1/4-inch seam. And when we have done that, we will have our unit 6 1/2 by 3 1/2 and a very precise corner, which is sometimes a little more difficult with the other methods that I've shown you.

And this is a great method if you enjoy foundation piecing. Of course with this method, the final step is you do have to tear the paper off the back. If you have sown with a small stitch width, 15 to 18 stitches an inch, your paper will come off easily. Flying geese are fun. They're essential to making many of the star units that are so popular.

And they can add a lot of motion to our quilts. I hope you'll try these methods of making flying geese units and decide which ones work well for you in the quilts that you're making and the quilts you're designing.