Flying Geese Quilt

Fall here in Almonte has flocks of geese flying south for the winter.  Seldom a day goes by without seeing the birds flying in V-shape formation and honking loudly as they continue their journey.  This inspired me to make a quilt based on flying geese.  I saw the Grey Goose Quilt made by Beech Tree Lane .  I loved the symmetry of the flying geese and the shades of grey and negative space.

I wanted to make a much larger size - almost 94" square and use more print fabrics.  Instead of a white background, I chose Grunge in Paper White by Moda.   Mad About Patchwork staff suggested that as an alternative to the white.  It has a bit of grey in it and worked perfectly.

 

I constructed the flying geese using the 4 at a time, no waste method.  It really did cut down on the waste and I was left with only bits from each block.  

There are lots of tutorials on the internet for the No Waste Method.  Here's one I found quite helpful.
Wing Clipper Tool  I made the blocks without using the tool.

Once all the blocks were made - over 200 of them -  I used my 'design board' to play with placement. 

When I was happy with the placement, I sewed the blocks together in columns.  Then joined the columns, alternating the geese going up in one and down in the next column.

I quilted my quilt using the  longarm machine at Happy Wife Quilting.  Jen's new machine is fantastic.  I chose the Samuri pattern after much hemming and hawing. 

  

The backing of the quilt is Wideback Spackle Newspaper Clipping from Windham.  It's a busy fabric to contrast the simplistic geese pattern.

Finally for the binding, I chose a red with black print.  I was originally going to use a black with very small polka dots, but the red makes for a nice contrast.  Happy with the final result.