Hive 1 Tutorial: Fly Geese Fly!

UPDATED 1/6 with more color/fabric options! See bold/blue text.

Hello Hive One! Welcome to January and the start of Stash Bee 2018!

I hope your new year is starting off well. Where I live in Central Florida we're starting things off with a winter cold spell. Yes, that means we've had weather in the 50s and 60s. I'll pause for a moment for those who live in the northern states, Canada, and anywhere else where it gets truly cold to stop laughing at me...

Well, when it gets cold it's time for the geese to fly south. And what better block for me to have chosen than one with flying geese! They've always been a favorite of mine, yet I've never made anything with them until now. Here is the block I've selected:

This block was originally made by Sharon at Color Girl Quilts and you can find her tutorial here, but I'm also going to walk you through it below with my color selections. I like the modern look with the grays on one side and the white on the other.  If you want to make your block with the gray fabrics on the right side and the white/low volume fabrics on the left that is good too!

I was playing around in EQ7 and here is a fun layout that I came up with:

UPDATED: Originally I wanted true white fabrics but I recently discovered the Scrap Bin Geese Block tutorial, and I loved the look so much that if you have low volume fabrics absolutely go ahead and use them! Also feel free to use different gray fabrics like the ones I've pictured below.

For the geese themselves, you get to choose your favorite color print fabrics or whatever color you have the most of in your scraps!  As long as all 6 geese are somewhere in the same color family, I'm happy. Reds, blues, yellows, greens, purple... think the rainbow!

Here is the cutting breakdown:

White fabric:  6 rectangles -- 2.5" x 7"
Gray fabrics:  6 rectangles -- 2.5" x 7"
Geese color:  6 rectangles -- 2.5" x 4.5"

You'll notice that I used 2 different gray fabrics. If you could you 2 different grays that would be ideal, but if you only have 1 color, that works too. Or if you don't have enough in your scraps and need to use 3, 4 or even 6 different gray fabrics that works too! That's why this is stash bee, work within your stash. If you're ever stuck and not sure, just email me. Again, feel free to use however many gray colored rectangles you have and they can be prints!

Start by taking one of your goose rectangles and a white rectangle on top, right sides together, so that it forms a right angle. Sew directly on the line, corner to corner (I mark a faint line using a pencil).

Once the corner is sewn, trim off the excess corner to a 1/4 inch and press open. (Sorry, I forgot to take of photo of this process while I was sewing but you can check out the original tutorial in the link provided above. She has great photos of this if you're not sure what I'm talking about).

Also, I prefer to press all my seams open, but please press them whatever way will help you to achieve an accurately pieced block.

Next, place a gray strip on top of the opposite side of the print rectangle with right sides together, and just like before, mark corner to corner and sew directly on the line.

Trim off the excess corner to a 1/4 inch and press open. Repeat this for the other 5 print geese rectangles. This goes very quickly if you do this in an assembly line fashion. Then you end up with this:

You'll notice that I alternated the light grays and dark grays as I laid it out. When sewing the rows together, I placed triangle side up so when sewing, I could see very clearly where I should sew so that I would have nice sharp points on the end of my geese units.

Once you've sewn all 6 strips together, you should end up with a block that measures 12.5" x 12.5" but don't worry if it's not perfect and don't bother doing any trimming. I'll take care of any trimming at my end.  And here it is, your finished block!

I hope this was a fun block to get us started off in hive 1.  Now I have a question for all of my hive-mates to answer (if you remember!) when you post your block -- I'm looking for things to watch or listen to while I sew. What shows do you recommend, if any, that I should watch? It can be a tv series that I should binge watch, a must-see movie, a podcast, or a book on tape/cd (or whatever they call it).

Happy Quilting!