Dutch Geese

This post is a continuation of yesterday's post about February's bee blocks. You may recall from yesterday's flying geese units that I had some little HSTs leftover from trimming seams. Well today I'll show how I used those and more from making more flying geese to add a cute twist to this next block.

First things first, I needed more flying geese. This time around I just made individual units using 5.25" x 3" rectangles and 3" squares and stuck with the low volume prints for the unit backgrounds because I wanted to use a wider variety of prints. I did have a few leftover geese from the 4-at-once approach that I used to make some for the Goose Feathers block, those are the pink tile ones in the upper right and middle. Since I used the standard method for making these new units, I ended up with lots and lots of teeny HSTs leftover. I wanted to do something interesting with this block, too so I decided to include these in the design. After playing around with the bits and pieces in a few different ways what did I come up with? 

Pinwheels! My other option was checkerboard stripes like I used in Mom's sewing machine cover. The pinwheels won out for cuteness. If you iron the seams to one side on the HSTs and as you piece, the points are super easy to match up just by nestling the seams against one another and making sure they're snug. Love it. 

I messed around with a lot of different layouts with the pinwheels and geese units. In the end I just really like the way long strips of flying geese look, so I made two of those and ended up placing the pinwheels side-by-side in one long strip, too. It is interesting that I ended up using sashing strips in both of these blocks when I normally don't think of it. In this case though, I did try sewing the geese and pinwheel strips directly together and it looked waaaay too busy. It needed some negative space, even if just a little. Also because I was flying by the seat of my pants again, I tacked on some black and white prints on either side of the flying geese units to make the strips as long as the pinwheel piece. It's pretty unobtrusive and I can't even see it unless I'm looking for it. 

There is a restaurant near our place that is called the Dutch Goose. They are basically a sports bar type of place, but the food is surprisingly good and varied. They also have the yummiest deviled eggs. So what else would this block be called with its pinwheels and flocks of geese besides Dutch Geese? It ends up measuring 14.5" x 15" slightly longer than wide as shown. 

Here is what I ended up with from the day's worth of work - Dutch Geese and Goose Feathers. I'm really pleased! Dave even mentioned how it is a shame they're going away because he liked them so much, even the colors. I may have to file these away for "make again" though I doubt it would be as fun to do a second time. I say this with many of the bee blocks, but I really can't wait to see how this quilt comes together with everyone's contributions. Thanks for such a fun assignment, Ara Jane!