How to Make a Charming Geese Mini Quilt

When Rowan sent us the beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabric charm packs for the giveaway (more details here!) I was itching to work something up with them. We had just released Anna Maria’s Flying Gosling quilt where she teaches her no fuss flying geese blocks which sparked an idea. I love to sew quilts but cutting out tons of fabric for blocks is less than inspiring to me. Anna Maria’s formula for flying geese blocks calls for one large and two small squares of fabric. I decided to make a mini quilt and use the 5″ x 5″ precuts from the charm packs for the large blocks. I used a little bit of my dusty algebra to figure out the small square dimensions.

Charming Geese 2

To learn how to make flying geese blocks watch Anna Maria Horner’s Flying Gosling Baby Quilt. The downloadable PDF has Anna Maria’s formulas for the blocks she uses as well as step by step instructions. Substitute her fabric cut list with the following dimensions to create these these mini blocks:

1 x Large Square = 5″ x 5″ (charm pack size!)
2 x Small Squares = 2 3/4″ x 2 3/4″

Just three squares will yield 4 flying geese blocks making this 18 block quilt a breeze.

CharmingGeese3

One small piece of advice when using charm packs for these blocks. Because the 5″x5″ fabric squares have pinked edges (those little triangular notches running along the sides) you need to be careful about how you line up your blocks as you sew. Make sure the very tips of the pinked edges are aligned with the straight edge of the small squares. Sew your 1/4″ seam from the straight edge. Here’s a photo so you can see what I mean:

edges

I used Sue Nickel’s Machine Quilting Basics to baste, quilt and bind the project. When the binding was finished it needed something a little extra. I love an excuse to use my family pictures to decorate my walls, so I did a small appliqué treatment in the lower left hand corner to highlight a favorite photo. I whipstitched two loops of linen ribbon to the back of the quilt and voila! My sweet little art quilt was ready to hang.

Loops

I loved having Kaffe, Anna Maria, and Sue right there with me while I worked on this project. Have any Creativebug classes or instructors inspired you to make your own designs?

600x204_Kaffe_Rowan_bloghero

You still have until May 29th to win four Kaffe Charm Packs, including the green color way used in this project. So leave a comment and let us know what you’d do with your new Kaffe Fassett fabric!