23 Geese a-laying

This is what I have done so far for this month's  Saturday Sampler BOM:

That's only about half of the number of Flying Geese units needed for this block.

The technique we learned for making the Flying Geese blocks involves using a new ruler that we all got in our introductory block.  It's called the "Quick Trim and Circle " ruler from Creative Grids.   The "Quick Trim" technique is used for making the Flying Geese.

There are lots of different ways to make Flying Geese, and everyone has their favorite, but since this is a new one to me, I thought it worth a try.  The biggest advantage I can tell, is that you don't have to draw a diagonal sewing line on the back of the squares.

Here's an overview of how the ruler is used, primarily because I want to add these photos to my blog so I can refer back to them again next month.  

Start with a square and a rectangle.

Place the square on top of the rectangle, right sides together.

Look, Ma!  No  diagonal lines!

Line up the crosshair lines on the ruler and cut.  (The lines are hard to see in the photo.)

 Bring the unit to your sewing machine, and sew a 1/4 inch seam along the edge you just cut.  Then open it out and press.

Do the same to the other side.  Cut. Sew. Press.

Now you have your Flying Geese unit.

For a stack of Flying Geese, you sew the next fabric to the top of the unit like this:

and start over again.

Pretty neat, once you get the hang of it.  When you are just learning how to use the ruler, you may end up with this:

So the next time, you concentrate really hard on getting the angle right, but forget to check that the fabrics are right sides together.

Hard to tell, but the top left corner had to be removed and turned over to the right side.

The downside to doing a BOM from a quilt shop is that if you goof up with fabric, you have no more yardage to replace it with.  I really liked that turqoise fabric with the black swirls, but I had to substitute a fabric from my stash when I cut it the wrong way.

The upside to doing a BOM is that you can make a labor-intensive, 68-piece block just this one time and never have to do one again.