Flying Geese Quilt : Birds on a Wire

 

I finished this quilt last weekend.  There are certain classic quilt patterns on my bucket list that I want to make : Flying Geese was one of them.   This was a kit from Connecting Threads a few years ago.   I love that striped border fabric. 

I used the 1-seam method for making the geese.  It creates a 3D goose block with little pockets behind the triangles.  Here's a video from Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson explaining the method :



All those colors Ricky Tims is using make me want to dye up some new fabric and make more geese!  Color and Drama!   But I'll save that for another day ...

Batting : Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly batting.  The same one I always use.  I love how it crinkles up and makes my quilts look antique after the first wash. 

It look me a long time to figure out how I wanted to quilt this quilt.  I took some notes in my Sweet Leaf Notebook Journal for Quilt.  I had forgotten about that whimsical feather there ...

For the Geese, I did this loop-de-loop pattern which tacked the geese down but not completely.  You can still get a finger into the pockets :
 

 

Sketched with DoodlePro App

Doodle Pro t

For the light sky part of the blocks, I did an echoed triangle around the shape.

For the yellow sashing, I did this "Bird's Eye" pattern.  Not sure where I picked it up anymore.  It's become one of my standards for this kind of shape.  I used it on a tea leaves quilt a while back ...

For the borders, I thought it needed some feathers.  You can't have a bird quilt and NOT add quilted feathers, right?   I practiced various feather patterns on a white board and paper to get them into muscle memory before attempting it in stitch. 

 

 

Auditioning various feather patterns. 

 

This is how they came out.  I used matching threads -- the Thread Art Polyester (with a nice sheen) embroidery thread worked great!  Not hard to get the tension right either.

 Here's a shot of the quilting from the back.  This fabric is more peaches and oranges -- think summer and sunsets.  But I adjusted the contrast so the stitching would show up better.    Still some threads to trim, I see!

The only thing left to do is the label.