After writing the Jawbreaker Pattern Hack Tutorial on how to use FQs for the Inside Geese, I was itching to make one myself! Flying geese are some of the most satisfying blocks to make, especially when you make them 4 at a time!
I luckily was sent some of the latest Ruby Star Society collections that are shipping to stores currently and Warp & Weft jumped out at me to use! It is an all woven collection and has 28 fabrics! The texture is beautiful and the fabric is sooo soft.
The Jawbreaker pattern is written to use yardage with strip piecing for the Inside Geese. I love that design aspect but sometimes you just want to use what you have on hand and, for me, that means FQs. I always have a lot of FQs. In the Jawbreaker tutorial hack I provide two different options when using FQs. 1. How to use them in the original stripe piecing look or 2. How to use them for a solid inside geese (traditional look). I decided to do the latter.
I decided to make the most of all the FQs I had and choose to make the Meandering Large Throw 64" x 80" size. I somehow misplaced 2 of the FQs from the Warp & Weft bundle so I used 26 FQs of this collection and added 8 FQs of Speckled prints for a total of 34 FQs.
The Speckled colors I added were: Neon Pink, Sunstone, Khaki, Warm Red, Cayenne, Daisy, Soft Blue and Denim.
I decided to play around with two main color stories - one for the outside geese and one for the inside geese. I really wanted to color stories to shift and evolve throughout the quilt and I think it really did that in a fun way!
Here is the color story for the outside geese:
Here is the color story for the inside geese:
And here they are together:
Before I started cutting the fabrics, I wanted to make sure the general idea I had in my head would end up looking how I wanted it to in real life. I went into my Illustrator file and just made a mock up in similar colors to get the general vibe.
This mock up confirmed that this would be SO fun and I dove right in. I made sure to starch this fabrics before starting as they are all wovens and that can make it easier for them to distort and shift when sewing.
I spent a few hours every day for a few days working my way through the flying geese. It was fun to see my stack of flying geese grow. Here they are when you see the outside geese side and the inside geese side:
Once they were all ready, I laid them out on the ground in their columns to make sure I love the evolution and had them correct to the pattern design.
As you can see some of the fabrics are directional. I didn't care about the stripes being vertical or horizontal throughout the quilt as long as they were going the same direction in a single geese. As in, the stripe fabric used for outside geese in a single one would both be horizontal instead of one outside being vertical and one being horizontal. Other than that, I didn't mind they going different directions.
After I lay them all out, then I stack up all up in columns together. It is from these column stacks that I start sewing them together. One of my favorite parts is you don't press ANY seams until all the columns are sewn. It makes the assembly so much quicker! You can just sew sew sew!
I took so many photos of this quilt in process because the sections of the quilt look so different from the next section. And the texture changes and the sparkle of the Speckled fabric adds such light!
I took some photos of the columns hanging in the correct order of my door. It was perfect because from there I would take a column and press it one direction and then grab the next column and press the opposite direction. The nested seams make me so happy and I don't pin!
Here is a tip! I always like to assemble my quilt tops in halves as much as possible. Instead of sewing say columns 1 - 2, 2 - 3, 3 - 4, 4 - 5, 5 - 6, working left to right. I do them in halves 1 - 2, 3 - 4 and then sew those 2 together to make the first half. Then I do the same thing to the second half. It makes handling the fabric so much easier! When you sew your last seam, the middle, you have equal weight in the fabric going through the machine which means it WAY easier to move through.
After I finished sewing this top together, I met up with Amy, my photographer, to swap some quilts she had just finished photographing and have her snap a few of this top finished.
We met on Alberta street here in Portland and all of these shots are from a single block. The murals are on opposite walls of the street and the foliage is just a sidewalk next to where her car was parked. Ev and I had our masks and kept a very safe distance from her.
These times are so strange with COVID-19 but I am so grateful for the ways we have been able to continue our work and share our experiences together. There is such a collective right now - collective pain, trauma, fear, heartbreak, grief. But also a collective of happiness, helpfulness, togetherness and shared understanding. I am forever grateful Amy was able to capture this time in our lives, specifically, in my work. If pictures are worth a 1,000 words, this one captures that idea perfectly.
I absolutely love these photos. Usually this street would be PACKED with people and cars. To be able to take photos for 15 minutes and only see 1 person pass is crazy to me.
Here is the mural on the opposite side of the street. It was directly in the sunlight and a bit crazier but I still love it.
When I showed my husband these next 2 foliage photos, he originally thought we were in Forest Park here on hiking trails. Nope, just a sidewalk in front of someones house but it is magic.
I am glad Amy snapped this photo on her phone of Ev and I. He was tired of sitting around hearing Amy and I talk about our lives and stresses with quarantine. He was over this shoot haha. And I snapped one of her.
Here are some of the detail shots Amy got.
I can't wait to get this quilted up! I don't know what I am doing to do with this quilt yet but I really love it. It was a nice creative break for me, to make something just for fun!
