This was extremely scary for me… No offense to Pam and Nicky Lintott… but as a newbie quilter I almost ran screaming.

I am commencing a quilt named High Flying Geese which is on page 30 of the book Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott. I’ve taken a photo of the completed quilt in the book, please do not distribute this, it is copyrighted by Pam and Nicky and I am just using it to illustrate what I am making and to discuss how I am doing with the process. [actually I am not keen on my pics being distributed either, so just be good!]

High Flying Geese Completed Quilt using Heather Bailey Fabrics - copyright Pam and Nicky Lintott

So as you can see, it’s a very pretty quilt.  The blocks used are sometimes called a Dutchman’s puzzle according to the book.  I recently attempted my first Schnibble quilt which had loads and loads of half square triangles in it, and after completing it, I thought, well maybe I can try the loads and loads of flying geese units I wanted to do with this quilt.

Wait… I also asked my mum for her Jelly Stash Templates which has a template in it for cutting flying geese units but I lost the instructions I wrote down at the quilt show,  so wasn’t going to use that.  Then I read about the Fit to be Geese ruler, which looks and sounds awesome to use , (hey?! if it’s good enough for Carrie from Miss Rosies Quilt Co, it’s good enough for everyone!) So I ordered that from the Fat Quarter Shop along with the Schnibbles pattern I am making for February (I think I’ll be rushing on that one!); but after reading a bit more I realised that the ruler I am getting (the mini fit to be geese ruler) is not the right size for the flying geese units in the book.

So you can read here about how I took the plunge and cut into my Amy Butler Daisy Chain stash.  I also cut up all my background fabric pieces (it’s plain white and would not make an interesting blog post, now would it?)

The instructions seem simple enough, but nobody said that my squares would overlap did they? I thought this was wrong and that I had a) cut all my pieces the wrong size or b) the book said to cut all the pieces the wrong size.  The next thing I discovered after googling the bulk flying geese method was that despite my drawing lines and trying to be super accurate, if I did not drastically reduce my seam allowance after I put the unit together, I would inadvertently chop of all the pointy bits which I guess are the geeses’ noses.

Also the book recommends to leave your strip fabric intact and to only cut away the excess background fabric (in my case – and theirs incidentally – plain white), but I don’t get how or why I should leave the strip fabric intact behind my white fabric, aside from the bulk, which is supposed to help keep the geese aligned, the strip pattern would be visible behind each background?!  I didn’t get it.

I still don’t actually.

So I trimmed off both the strip fabric and the background fabric and am now totally aghast at the wastage and intend at some point to figure out how or what I can do with all those teeny triangles…

Anyway I forged on and believe after all my angst about what I was doing that the first four blocks worked out ok, and that if I stick to what I have been doing, the rest will to.  The blocks are made in pairs, though you can switch the fabrics so that one block has a particular fabric in the centre and then the next one has it on the outside. I chose to make them both the same.

These are the fabrics for block 1 and 2. The first pair.

Daisy Chain Flying Geese Block Pair 1

These are the fabrics for Block 3 and 4. The second pair

Daisy Chain Flying Geese Block Pair 2

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