Making perfect four at a time flying geese is something some people struggle with, especially at first. Once you get the hang of them, they are super fun to make and they tend to come out perfect every time. There are a lot of blog posts out there about more drastic measures to get perfect flying geese, including making them bigger and then trimming them down to size. I prefer smaller, less drastic strategies and they work well for me. I will be describing those in this blog post.
First Time?
If this is your first time making four at a time flying geese, I STRONGLY suggest you do a test set or two. The first two sets of four at a time flying geese I made were relatively wonky, and yours might be too. So grab some scraps or ‘why the heck did I buy this fabric’ and try a test set or two first.
Tips for Perfect Flying Geese:
Most of these tips are based on continued precision.
- Make super sure that your fabric is cut to the right size. Wrong sized fabric will give you wonky geese.
- When you draw the line on your small squares, put the ruler over slightly to the side so that your line will be drawn perfectly (see example below).
When you pin your squares watch out for these things:
- that the blue square lines up perfectly with the edge of the white square
- make sure that the fabric is still flat after you pinned it and there is not any puckering
- when you have both of your squares pinned, make sure that the line you drew lines up (see image below)
- Make sure you are exactly a 1/4″ from the drawn line. If you have a quarter inch presser foot, now is the time to get it out.
- Take out the pins before your foot gets super close to them (see example below for when to take your pin out), this will keep the fabric from bunching slightly and getting off
- You can check if you have a perfect quarter inch seam before cutting by using a ruler. Line the edge of the ruler up with your drawn line and see if the quarter inch line is where you sewed, this is a way to check that you are set up well before you do a permanent cut. See example below.
- Once you iron it open, it should look like the picture below
- Keep using the pinning tips from above and pin your squares.
- Start sewing on the outer corner, I find the fabric shifts less.
- When you are done, your seam line should line up with the edge of your fabric (see image below).
That’s all folks! You should now have flying geese the perfect size! 🙂
