Free Table Quilts and 3-D Flying Geese Tutorial

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Look what I found on the free table!  Some assembly required, of course.

Does your quilt group have a free table?  At our guild, the free table is a place where people can bring items they no longer want and other people can take them home.  These lap quilts started out as bags of squares several years ago.  I don't even know who brought them.

Here's the brown quilt displayed on the fence around my strawberry bed.  There were hundreds of squares in the bag, some brown, some off-white, and some a dark red.  Very conveniently, they were cut 2.5 in. square.  During the pandemic, when I needed a leader/ender project, I started making nine patches from the squares.  This one finished at 38 in. square.

I had fewer red squares, so I added a paisley border to the red quilt.  I set the nine patches in vertical rows with a staggered sashing.  This one is 36 in. square.

Both quilts have this plaid backing from my stash, and were quilted in a 2 in. grid with the serpentine stitch.  Batting leftovers were just the right size for both of them.   I even used leftover binding from another quilt to finish off the brown quilt.

 These projects have been languishing in my UFO pile for literally years.  I even had the border for the red quilt chosen, but not added, until last week.  It feels great to move them out at last.  They will be donated to a local nursing home.

So, what's next?  I have lots of Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks to join into quilts, and I'm thinking about what I want to do for next year's RSC.  What about flying geese?

All the Canadian geese flying overhead and honking made me think of this, but I was seriously inspired by a book I bought on the sale table at the library by late quilting great Mary Ellen Hopkins.

Mary Ellen Hopkins was an absolute hoot!  I was lucky enough to attend a lecture she gave back in the 1980s.  There was nothing dry about her lectures, we were laughing half the time!  She had lots of clever ways to cut and piece, and was an early adopter of the rotary cutter.  She also is probably the inventor of what we sometimes call "flippy corners".  This book has some of her fun ideas.

This is the one that excited me.  She calls it Loose Goose.  It's a technique for making 3-dimensional flying geese.  With just one seam, not kidding!

The directions were a little confusing, but I finally figured it out.  Here's how I make them.

For each unit, you need one rectangle, 2.5 in. x 4.5 in., and two background squares cut 2.5 in. x 2.5 in.

1.  Fold the rectangle in half like this.

2.  Turn the folded rectangle like this, with the fold at the top.

3.  Lay the folded rectangle on top of a background square, lining up the bottom edges.  There should be about 1/4 in. of background square showing the the top.  (If the background square has right/wrong sides, it should be right side up.)

4.  Lay the second background square on top.  If it has right/wrong sides, put it right side down.  Now sew a 1/4 in. seam on the right through all layers.

 This is the result.  It looks weird, but trust me, this is right.  

Now for the tricky bit.  Use your fingers to open up the "goose" and move the fold to line up over the seam.  The points will go into the corners of the background squares.  (It's hard to describe, sorry.)

And here's what you end up with!  It needs to be pressed to hold its shape.  I press the seam on the back open to reduce bulk.

From here you can make all sorts of patterns.   If you like, you can baste the bottom of the unit together, or just catch it in the seam when sewing it to other units.

So that's my first idea for RSC 2024.  Thanks, Mary Ellen!

Here's a weird question for you.  I found this fat quarter in a bag of fabric I bought at the guild's silent auction.  Have you ever heard of this fabric?  Would you use it in a kid's quilt?  What if I cut it up so it's not as recognizable?  Or is there something else you'd do with it?  (Zipper pouch for Snoop Dogg??)

In other agriculturally related news, we took our little guy to the apple orchard this week.  He was so excited when the lady gave him an apple.  Half a bushel of apples came home with us for applesauce.  We also bought pumpkins for the porch and for pie, and pears.  So I've got some canning to do this weekend, and better get started.

Have a lovely day, and a wonderful week!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 

Cynthia at Oh Scrap