Starts and Finishes

Friday is a great day.
For those who work all week, Friday is the day when you are at the finish line.
You made it thru the week. The weekend is here.

It is also a great day for introspection. What happened this week? What did I accomplish? What are my plans for next week?

For my Friday Finishes, I am going to show some blocks. And truly, at this stage, they are finished because they are for a block exchange and I can't put them together until I get my collection of everyone else's blocks back!

And since I did Flying Geese blocks and used some cool tools, I thought I would do a quick tutorial. Why not?

So, the block I am working on is made up of 3 1/2" x 6 1/2" Flying Geese blocks. I decided to do the No Waste Method. To do that you need:
(1) 7 3/4" square of the goose fabric
(4) 4 1/8" squares of the sky fabric

This will make 4 FG blocks. I need 18 of them.

You start by marking lines on the wrong side of the sky fabric. You need a center line, drawn corner to corner and then lines 1/4" away on either side of the center line. To do this I used a  FriXion pen and the Quilter's Magic Wand. The FriXion pen is a great marking tool- the lines go away when you apply friction, such as ironing. Truly great. And it makes a nice, skinny line, perfect to sew on.

The Quilter's Magic Wand is a tool to mark those 1/4" lines- it has a line down the center of the tool and is set to mark a scant 1/4", allowing for your marking tool. Works just perfect!

Lay two of the marked squares, RST, on the geese fabric in opposite corners. I am not a big pinner, but I pin the fabrics together so they don't shift as I sew.

The two squares will overlap in the center.

Now, sew on the lines.

And then cut apart along the center line.

Press to the small squares. Kind of looks like a heart at this stage, don't you think?

Now, lay another small square in the last corner and sew on the 1/4" lines.

Cut apart along center line. You will have two units.

Press to the small squares and Viola! Two Flying Geese. Finish the other section and you will have 

four!

They need to be trimmed. The idea is that you have a little "fudge factor" built in in case you sew a little wonky. So how best to trim them? there are a lot of rulers on the market, but look what I found in my ruler drawer? The Wing Clipper is made to trim Flying Geese blocks. I picked it up at a quilt show in Long Island and to be honest, this is the first time I have used it! but I am hooked!

Find the lines for the size geese you are making. Then line up the markings with your seam lines and trim two sides.

Turn the geese over and trim the other two sides. Perfect!

Here are my finished geese with the fabric reversed.

And here is one of my finished blocks.

And another . Not sure which one I like better. I have 10 blocks, so I will send out 9 and keep one for myself! But which one???

OK, so that is my finish for this Friday. I am off to work on something else today and will post more on that tomorrow. Here is a peak.

OH- the giveaway! 

Have you entered yet??? It ends today. Or tonight. 

So pop over to this post, leave a comment and maybe you will one of my cute projects from my CQC FQ Challenge!

Thanks for visiting! See you tomorrow!

happy quilting,

Kate

p.s. if you like I Spy quilts, pop over here to Blossom Heart Quilts for a cute giveaway!