5. Flying Geese Americana
The pattern in the photo at left is copied from a finished lap quilt that Sue Schroyer had draped over a chair. Her's had a similar single-color background with varied color triangles, the same vertical sash, and prominent wide border.
I loved it! I begged her to dig out the pattern (this after I had just finished Yellow Brick Road from Atkinson Design.
But Sue had a better idea. It was time I learned to "draft" a pattern based on a finished piece. And even though I complained about the difficulty of working with triangles, I'm so very glad she stood her ground on this one.
Individual "geese" were 4.5" tall at the point, and 9" wide at the base. They go together as 2 blocks, each 4.5"x4.5" finished, so my cutting list called for 5"x5" blocks. It was as easy as that! Drafting a pattern just meant measureing the blocks and adding 1/2" each direction to allow 1/4" seam allowance. After that I was on my own and having no trouble.
By the way -- Notice the white stars on dark blue in the sash, and in the border --- all were cut from the lengthwise stripe fabric below. That left me with quite a bit of scrap, but I've got my eye on a placemat pattern to make use of the remainder.
I used background fabric to add side panels to the dark blue sash to keep the geese and sash from crowding each other.
Americana fabrics were much too busy to use alone. But a few yards of off-white broadcloth really made them pop, and made a perfect backing to compliment with the front..
Reserving the obvious stripe pattern for borders and sash was a good move too -- the effect would have been lost in the geese.
First came the measuring!
Easy. There were 8 geese per column, 4 columns total, with 2" sash between the columns. I did notice the seam in the middle of each 9" block width, but I didn't understand the importance right away.
The sash pieces, geese strips, and outside border strips all measured the same 36" length. That meant they would all be sewn together before the top and bottom borders were attached.
Sue also suggested that I wait until I had that much completed in my own project before measuring top and bottom borders. Smart move! That allowed me the choice to make the sash and borders wider and make best use of the stripe print. I wound up with 6" wide instead of the original 2" and 4", and was still able to cut the top and bottom pieces in the correct length.
Not being a whiz-kid at geometry I was planning to make paper patterns for the geese and background. But it was time for another lesson --- the popular technique of half-square traingles!.
step 1 - Cut 5"x5" squares in background color and print fabrics. Pin background to print, face to face, and mark a diagonal line through the center -- see cautions about using 1/2" tape to make the line. Then sew 1/4" seam on each side of the center. step 2 - Cut between stitched seams, and press open with seam allowance to darker color. Then sew blocks back together as above to make a "geese" panel..
Sewing the geese panels into strips took some care. For one thing, it was hard to avoid nipping the top off the triangles. The slightest bump in an otherwise straight seam pinched the tops on more than one before it was all together.
Sew geese into strips, alternating prints in whatever pattern looks good.
For this one I chose a stair-step arrangement.
Finally all four strips of geese were together and it was time to make final decisions about sashing.
