Finding My Way - More about the Scrappy Geese Quilt

The second round of quilting in the borders and another trip through the washer/dryer last night did the trick. My quilt, Finding My Way, no longer has friendly, waving borders.

 

About the Quilt

It measured 60 by 80 inches before it was washed and dried; now it is closer to 56 by 75 inches.

90 flying geese units were arranged into trios of geese with light, medium and dark values (relative to one another), ordered light to dark. The individual units were from a block exchange–a great way to collect geese made from 90 different fabrics and almost as many cream sky backgrounds. The thirty trio of geese had 2 inch strips added to each side to create 9 inch (finished size) blocks. The six star blocks added at the top are 8 inches. The the borders was created by sewing 40 two inch width of fabric (WOF) strips together for 60 inches of wide scrappy striped made fabric. After cutting the made fabric for borders and trimming the edge even, I had a 3 inch strip left, which I used in the pieced backing.


The free motion quilting (on my old-as-me Singer 301), was designed to create a soft, crinkly texture.  There's a bendy, loopy feather in each of the goose triangles, a soft meander in the sky and loopy squares in alternating directions in the tan sashing strips, continuing around the stars  The border was quilting in the ditch between the strips, with more curving lines with loops added within each strip to better balance with the rest of quilt.

Although this quilt is VERY scrappy, made from more than 200 fabrics,  the design could easily be made from a precut layer cakes, charm squares and jelly rolls ... the idea has caught with me and I'll be looking for the right fabrics to make a bed-size version (maybe with bird blocks instead of the stars).  For more information about how to make the blocks, check out my Tip Sheet for making Flying Geese and my directions for making the Square and Points Star block.

If you love the look of the scrappy geese blocks, we're making them for the block lotto this month–come check it out and join us ... you could win a set of your own.

Here's the quilt in action on the chaise in the studio.  Notice how Johnny Be Good first photo bombs my efforts to take a photo, then claims the quilt and glares in my direction, daring me to just try to budge him from his new quilt.

Ultimately, he settled in and had a nice long snooze, giving this quilt his kitty seal of approval.

Don't finishes feel great ... even if they aren't exactly on time?  Can I have (another) Whoop for this one?

I'm also linking with Pat Sloan's Show & Tell,  Fresh Sewing Day, FMQ Friday (when Leah's post is up) and Link a Finish Friday.