hotsytotsy wrote:
Marilyn, in Sue's directions with the November BOM patterns, you will find directions for both paper piecing (page 3) and the bikini method (page 5) for making flying geese units. She also demonstrates several methods for making flying geese in her video tutorial for November.

Montanna Gramma what is the bikni style to make the flying
geese? Am dumb! I don't get on here very often, but am
courious as to what the bikni style is I want to learn an easier way, other than the one seam style .
Marilyn

I have been using the paper pieced method and so far everything has fit just fine. I have three sides on and almost finished with the fourth. I have tried Eleanor Burns method before but much prefer the paper pieced one. It makes me feel more comfortable that I am getting it accurate.
Kari

I finally have my geese attached. They measured exactly what Sue said they should and my quilt with borders measured what it was supposed, yet I had to take one of the geese blocks off all 4 sides. Then it fit perfectly. Don't know where I went wrong, but they are on now.

Sherry, I used Eleanor Burns method of making four at a time but by the time I did them all; I could have been done with the paper piece. Anyway, I am plugging along and will be really glad to have this border done.

I started making the flying geese by the paper piecing method, made 12 geese and decided that I was getting annoyed! :shock: I have now re-cut everything and am going to use the one seam method.

Jean in Windsor, ON

Ritzy, what method did you use? I used the bikini method. I ordered the ruler from Kaye Wood. So far, this has been the easiest part of this quilt for me. Maybe it has more to do with our personalities than the method. I have found this entire quilt to be a very tedious task; yet others have enjoyed every minute of it. I have my geese all sewed and ready to attach to the quilt - hopefully I will do that on Tuesday. Then one last border and I'm done (I used my sawtooth stars in place of the pinwheels).

Since you haven't started yet--I am going to suggest doing the paper pieced method. I am so tired of making flying geese and I still have to sew them together and them attach them. This is the first time I have felt overwhelmed by this quilt.

I am not ready to start the flying geese but really appreciate everyone taking time to write about your method. Will let you know how it turns out, but must finish the star borders. Thanks, Pat

Hi, my flying geese went together beautifully, just the right size. Only problem was, my quilt center was not the same size. I sewed the geese strips together using a slightly bigger seam allowance for the bottom of the strip, so as not to cut off the point on the goose. This was maybe 1/12" deeper. However, when I sewed the geese to the quilt, that 1/12" translated into a 1/4" gap between the goose point and the seam for the affected geese.

After going back again through the instructions, I noticed that Sue mentioned you could redraft the geese to be flatter, BUT this would mean having to rip everything out and essentially start over. I could have taken off the TOP goose in each strip and made a flatter one- this seemed like too much in my discouraged state.

So, I unsewed some of the border seam, took out the 1/12" difference, and resewed the border. Even though it was slightly bigger than the quilt center, it went on fine and looks good.

Lessons learned? I could have put on a wider spacer border to begin with. I could have drafted the flying geese strip in EQ to be a tad shorter. Even though I was frustrated, I learned a lot putting that border on!

Kathy

mariedut wrote:
This sounds like a wonderful method. Although I already have most of my pieces cut for my flying geese, I'm going to try your suggestion.

I used the paper piecing method also and thought it worked well. I did 4 strips at a time - one for each side of the quilt. As soon as I finished a set of 4 I sewed them to the previous set of 4 strips , so had all the strips put together as I finished the last geese. It does waste more fabric but I save all my scraps and use them as fill for dog beds or toys. A friend on another site suggested this - seems much better than actually throwing away fabric! You can use batting scraps also.

I Draw the flying geese on freezer paper- then stacked 7 layers on top of each other and mark all the layers by sewing through them (with out thread in the needle. (Had to repeat this twice to mark enough) Three of these strips will give me 39 geese- so I kept 12 pieces and cut the other up in 2 X 5 and 2 X 3 geese.
Now I have 16 strips and I piece all of them, then press and then sew all 16 again. (Was glad when the short once were finished and I only have 12 left)
I do not sew through the paper when piecing but fold it out of the way and piece right next to it (use it as a guide) then I iron(press) the fabric onto the waxy side of the paper. In the end I will not have paper to tear off- it just lift away. I also do not have to fiddle to look through the paper for correct placement, and I trim the patches when necessary. (After I fold the paper out of the way- I can see if the seam allowance are over sized.)

Tis method is described in Judy Mathieson's book on Mariners compass

I'm using the bikini method after attempting unsuccessfully to use the paper piecing method. The disadvantages to the paper piecing method are that it waste more fabric, the paper more quickly dulls your machine needle, and most frustrating is that this method screws up the tension in my sewing machine. Oh, I forgot to mention that you waste all of that paper and printer ink.

I was very familiar with the bikini method, since I used it for the sawtooth and border stars. Frankly, I'm getting a little bored of making flying geese and stars.