I’m so excited to share the Patchwork Flying Geese quilt with you today! This is the third quilt in the Quilty Love Stash Buster Series. Patchwork Flying Geese is written around fat quarters and doesn’t use any background fabric so it is as stash friendly as it gets!
Patchwork Flying Geese is a fast and fun fat quarter quilt. The flying geese are constructed with not waste and come together super fast when making them four at time.
Flying Geese are one of those classic quilting shapes so it was fun to come up with a little different layout using them.
Patchwork Flying Geese is available in the Quilty Love pattern shop.
Ruby Star Society Tarry Town Fabrics
For this version of Patchwork Flying Geese I used the brand new Ruby Star Society Tarry Town fabrics. This bright and colorful fat quarter bundle worked out so well for this modern flying geese quilt. Tarry town has some neutral prints in the fat quarter bundle making it a really great option for this quilt.
Those neutral prints can be tricky to use if you use lighter colored backgrounds in your quilts. I particularly love when bundles have those lighter neutrals for the Quilty Love stash buster quilts.
Stash Buster quilt pattern
The Patchwork Flying Geese quilt pattern is the third pattern in the Quilty Love Stash Buster quilt pattern series. This series has been so much fun to create and sew up.
The goal of the stash buster quilt pattern series is for you to get inspired to sew your stash. All of these Stash buster quilt patterns are written with your stash in mind. I’ve designed all of the quilt patterns in the series around precuts and precuts only. So far they have not needed any background fabrics. This means you can pull some fabrics from your stash and start sewing.
Fat Quarter Friendly quilt pattern
The Patchwork Flying Geese quilt pattern is written specifically around fat quarters. Fat Quarter quilts are really great stash quilts since so many quilters collect fat quarters or half yards.
I personally have always collected fat quarters but I was curious if this was common among other quilters. So I polled my audience a couple of weeks ago. Fat Quarters was selected easily as the most common fabric size in quilters stash. Next up was half yards and yards both coming in at similar numbers.
I was kind of relieved to get those results since I’ve always assumed Fat Quarters are a popular size among quilters. I write most of my patterns around fat quarters. Even if you are one of the quilters who collect half yards or yards then these fat quarter quilts are still perfect for you since you can cut fat quarters from either one of those bigger fabric sizes.
Flying Geese quilt
I enjoy creating quilt patterns around commonly used quilting shapes. This time it was flying geese! I personally enjoy making flying geese. I find them super satisfying to sew up.
Patchwork Flying Geese is a simple and modern take on flying geese. The quilt pattern has you making flying geese four at time which means quick construction and no waste! Making flying geese four at time is so clever!
Tips and tricks for sewing Flying Geese four at a time
It can be tricky to get those flying geese the exact size when making them four at a time! I admit that just about every thing I sew comes out too small. I’ve yet to perfect the perfect quarter inch seam. But I tend to be consistently too small so my quilts always work out just fine.
I did a little research while I was creating this quilt pattern for better flying geese.
- Use a scant 1/4 inch seam allowance. A scant quarter inch is pretty much the standard when it comes to quilting but for something like four at a time flying geese it’s super important. A scant 1/4 inch seam allowance is a smidge under 1/4 inch. This gives you a little extra room when you account for thread thickness and pressing fabric.
- Cut your squares a little bigger and then trim to size if needed. I did some experimenting and I found that increasing both the larger square and smaller squares by 1/8 inch helped my flying geese come out a better size. This allows for a teeny tiny bit of trimming. Just enough to get that nice straight line across the top.
- Pull your smaller squares in a few threads from the corners. This was a brand new trick I just learned and it sure is helpful! This alone might be all you need to do to size out your flying geese better. (See the diagrams below)
- Use flying geese rulers. I personally don’t have any flying geese rulers but so many quilters love them! Two that came up were the Bloc Lock rulers and Wing Clip rulers.
- Cut accurately! It’s all going to come back to your cutting skills with four at a time flying geese. Take your time to cut those squares perfectly sized and perfectly square.
The flying geese in Patchwork Flying Geese are a larger size which makes them easier to make and a little more forgiving in their size. The smaller a flying geese gets the trickier it is to perfectly size out.
I would consider Patchwork Flying Geese to be an ambitious beginner quilt due to those flying geese. Once you get the hang of making flying geese four at a time they really are not too bad!
Fast and easy quilt pattern
Patchwork Flying Geese really is a fast and easy quilt to make. Once you get the hang of those flying geese four at a time it sews together really quickly. This is one of those quilts that I want to make up with all of the bundles I currently have in my stash…haha. It’s an addicting one to make just like Lucky Log Cabins.
Long Arm quilting
Here’s a photo of Patchwork Flying Geese freshly quilted by Jenae of Vintage Stitch. I love that Jenae sends the best sneak peek photos when she does the quilting.
We chose the wavy lines for this one to keep it fresh and modern. It shouldn’t be any surprise that I love this wavy design since my own go to quilting stitch is also wavy lines on my domestic machine.
If you are having a hard time choosing a long arm quilting pantograph, try this one! It works so well on so many quilts. Since this flying geese quilt was pretty busy the minimal quilting design works well.
There is nothing better than getting a quilt back from the long arm quilter! I still feel very spoiled when I do. I’ve been sending more of my quilts to a long armer over the past year since my time is more limited with a two year old. It’s been one of the best things to outsource. I still love quilting myself but I enjoy it a lot more when I feel like I have the time to do it.
All the quilt sizes in Patchwork Flying Geese
I have you covered for every size quilt in Patchwork Flying Geese. The pattern includes instructions to make:
- Baby size
- Small throw size
- Medium throw size
- Large throw size
- Twin size
- Full size
- Queen size
- King size
The Tarry town Patchwork Flying Geese quilt featured in this blog post is the large throw size. It’s a very generous throw almost big enough to be a bed size. I do include all of those bed size quilts though too!
I love large throw quilts and the larger the quilt, the quicker you sew through your stash 😉
Patchwork Flying Geese Backing and Binding
I used a new widback on this Patchwork Flying Geese quilt! If you have been following along then you know I really love the Peppered Cotton wide backs. I picked up a new color recently. This is Peppered Cotton in the color Oyster. It’s a beautiful creamy color. It’s not white but it’s still pretty light.
I use widleback fabrics as quilt backs whenever possible because they save time and money. No piecing and they usually come out cheaper than 44″ wide fabrics. Most wide backs are around 108″ so you only need about a yard and a half to two yards of it.
Calculating yardage for a wideback fabric
If you want to find out how many yards of a wide back fabric you would need for a quilt pattern, this is my favorite quilting calculator.
Or you can figure it out yourself by dividing the width of the quilt by 36″. This is assuming the length of the quilt is under 108″. So for example this large throw quilt is 65″ x 80″. 80″ is under 108″ so I’m going calculate the wide back yardage like this: 65″ + 8″ overage = 73″. 73/36 = 2.02. So I would need 2.02 or 2 yards of a wideback fabric.
Patchwork Flying Geese quilt pattern
I see patchwork when I look at this quilt which is why I included it in the pattern name. I love all of those busy prints all mixed together creating a wonderful patchwork. Patchwork Flying Geese looks good in a variety of options!
So far I’ve done this busy print version, an ombre version, a scrappy three color version with neutral geese and a monochromatic version.
Sew one up using a curated bundle or create one using your fabric stash.
I hope you love sewing up this stash buster quilt pattern!
Materials:
Quilt Pattern: Patchwork Flying Geese by Quilty Love
Fabrics: Tarry Town fabrics for Ruby Star Society
Binding: Kona cotton in the color Curry
Backing: Peppered Cotton wideback in the color Oyster
Pieced on my Janome MC6700P
Long Arm quilted by Vintage Stitch
