This post is about how to do a sawtooth block with flying geese that have double directionality and make everything go the direction you want, while still making them four at a time.
I always make my flying geese 4 at a time, because I HATE wasting fabric. I am all about efficiency. I was doing a sawtooth block for my Heather Ross Little Miss Sawtooth Quilt (Pattern from Southern Charm Quilts) and I really wanted to use two particular fabrics for my flying geese, but they both had directionality. I wasn’t willing to make them one at a time and waste precious Heather Ross fabric from the Mendocino collection so I went ahead and cut them out to do 4 at a time and was like ‘pshhh I can figure this out’.
I did figure it out. I was really nervous about ruining my fabric though, so here are instructions for any of you who need it on how to do this. (Sorry the pictures are a little dark, I took these pictures when I made this block at 6:30 am)
Instructions:
- When you draw your lines on your small squares make sure that
- The fabric is going in the normal direction (see the strawberries)
- Draw lines on 2 from top left to bottom right
- Draw lines on 2 from top right to bottom left
2. Lay your blocks out like this. You want your background square to be pointing the normal direction. You want the directional bottom of your small squares pointing towards the left. (See image below)
3. Then sew a 1/4 inch on both sides of the line. Then cut on the line.
4. Iron seams open. It should look like the image below.
4. Lay your partially constructed geese in the way that the directionality is normal (down is down, see below). Then take your small squares and lay them on top so that their directional down points to your right (see image below). One square has two lines, because for a second I thought I was doing it wrong and drew another line, just ignore the second line.
5. Sew a 1/4 inch on both sides of the drawn line. Then cut on the drawn line.
6. Iron seams open. Figure out which geese goes where for directionality reasons.
7. Finish your sawtooth block!
Other Tips:
- Always iron seams open when doing flying geese
- Check that you did not mess up your geese before squaring them up and trimming any edges
- If you are ever concerned that you potentially messed up which direction fabric should point and that you will not end up having perfect directionality, you can place an object on the drawn line on the small square and open it up to see if it aligns right.
- Ex. I put my finger on the drawn line then open the square on my geese up and check that patterns are going up and down like they should
I hope this helps! Happy sewing 🙂
