Something new... at least for me! Tutorial

This is a "3-D curved flying geese" Tutorial. I'm not sure if there is a technical name for it, but that's MY name for it. I saw it at the Greater Hartford Quilt Guild's Sharing Day event and was bowled over by the creativeness and the possibilities!!

I started my 'test block' with 3" wide strips (just because I can never think of what else to do with 3" strips).

I cut two 3" x 3" peach squares and the black (geese) was cut 3" x 5.5" (you'll see why it wasn't cut 3" x 6" in a minute). You can make your geese any size, just remember to cut the 'folded' goose 1/2" shorter than twice the size of your 'squares'.

I folded the black rectangle in half- wrong sides together, which made it a 1/4" shorter when laid on the 3" x 3" square. Put the other 3" x 3" sq on top, right side of fabric down. (the squares will always be right sides together with the goose -right sides out-sandwiched in-between).

Sew down the SIDE of the block so it looks like this when opened.

Press the top square open and press the 'fold' into the black so when you open the folded black fabric, the crease stays like this

Line up the raw edges of the black to the raw edges on the bottom of the peach squares so they match like this

then press flat (the two top edges of the geese are really folded)

Now comes the fun part....

Fold the top edges to see what you will get for a 'look', but don't sew them just yet.

Here is my second 'set' of flying geese, since I wanted to give it a different look. It's only laid out on my cutting mat as a test (large black square was under the main black and white block, so it looks like small black squares, but decided not to get to 'tricky' on the first test block, just yet)

This is how I chose to finish off the block, as far as colors, but it isn't done yet!

Here is the final block, with only the bottom edge and the right-hand side (black geese only) folded back and sewn)...

The one thing you must know in sewing this curve.... when you get to sew 2/3 of the 'arch' in the goose, stop your machine- needle down- and roll back the next curve (other wing) so the 'points' overlap, then keep sewing up to the point-- stop, needle down-- then turn and follow the second wing's curve. I also 'curved the peach wings under the black wings, along with the single peach triangles that went off the the side of the geese (I just added that for unique-ness).

Hope this makes perfect sense to you and you all try this.... I was so excited after this event, I had all my geese made within hours of being home, just not sure of the final design.