Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I’ve got a great project for you today. Take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? I love the idea of the migrating geese. I’ve been watching that. And I think I’ve come up with a really easy way to do it. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one roll of 2 ½ inch strips. And we’ve used Nova by Basic Gray for Moda. You’re also going to need some background fabric. And we have used about two yards. And it covers your little geese. It covers your sashing, it covers that inner border. For your outer border over here you’re going to need a yard and ¼ and it’s a six inch border. Your backing is going to be 4 ½ yards and you’re going to use a vertical seam. And it just comes together so quick. This is going to make a quilt that is like 73 by 70 so it’s a good size quilt. And it’s a lot of fun. Let me show you how to do it.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to start with my strips. And I’m going to lay them out like this. And I’m going to make sure that my selvedge edges line up together. You know sometimes they do and sometimes you need to make a little adjustment. These ones are lining up real nice. And I’m going to stack two of them like this. Now the other thing you’re going to need is a binding tool. A lot of people use this binding tool for binding and it works great with that. It’s also great for making a braid which is what we’ve done here. We’ve used this braid. But at the end of the day I snowballed the top of it and it created that migrating geese look. Alright so we’re going to take our strips right here, I’ve got them laid out. I have now four layers that I’m cutting through. Cut however many you’re comfortable with. I’m going to lay my ruler right on the edge of my strip like this and I’m going to trim off the selvedge edge right here. And then I’m going to trim up this side right here. Now this is an angle. I’m going to move this away a little bit and I’m going to cut this little tip right here. Now when you do this and your strips are folded you’re going to get some pieces that go to the left and some pieces that go to the right. And you want to make two stacks of those. You’re actually going to need 100 of each direction. So we’re going to stack those up. And I’m going to keep cutting this to show you how I did this. So now we flip our ruler over. And you line it up along that angle and the angle is already done for you and all you have to do is cut this straight edge here and this little tiny bit off the end of there. And again we’re just going to stack them. And I kind of like to do that as I go along. So here’s this one and this one and this one and this one. There we go. Now we’re left with this piece that isn’t quite long enough to get, to put, you know, to fit on our tool so we’re going to want to open it up. And you need one going each direction. So the way to do that is to put them right sides together just like this. So we’re going to lay these right sides together make sure the fold doesn’t make any little tuck. Feel it to make sure it’s nice and smooth. You’re going to lay your tool on there. And we’re just going to cut on the angle again, just like this. Alright so you have this little leftover piece and, and then you have these pieces right here. And we should have one that goes each direction and we do. So that’s how you do that. You’re going to need 100 of each.

Now what we want to do is we want to snowball the top of the squares. Now I told you two yards of your yardage to make this but I love these little Kona squares. They’re 2 ½ inch squares and they are so handy, no cutting. You can also, if you have extra strips laying around you can get your 2 ½ inch squares out of a strip. So you know, just, if you have some scraps, I know you guys have some scraps so we just want to do this. Alright so now what I’m going to do is I am going to draw or iron a sew line. So what I’m going to do is I’m just going to finger press this. It’s going to give me a sew line. All of my, all of my angles that are going to the out, the angle at the top is the opposite so I’m going to sew in like this, ok? So we’re going to go to the sewing machine, we’re going to sew right on that line. And just like this. And you’re going to want to do this to all your pieces. Alright, sometimes you have a hard time seeing that line but you can see right here, I’ve got my line and then I’m going to use my little ruler and I’m just going to come in a quarter of an inch and I’m just going to trim that off. Oh hang on, I’ve got a thread right there. Alright so I’m just going to trim this off. Now we’re going to press that open. And again you’re going to do this to all of your pieces. So keep them in there, same piles like this. So I have a pile of these that are done. And then I have a pile going the other direction. And see your blocks should come into each other. So just make sure whatever angle this one is you’re coming in toward it. And l let me stack up a few here. Alright I have them all, there we go. Alright.

So now let me show you how to create the braid. So what I did to create the braid and the geese is I took a 2 ½ inch square and I cut it directly in half like this. And then I took one of these right here. And I’m going to start it on each side. So we’re going to start with the side where the fabric is next to the geese, just like this. We’re going to lay this on here like this and we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch down on this side. So let’s come over to the sewing machine and do that. Put our needle up and then we’re going to line our quarter of an inch. So now we have a piece that looks like this. It looks a little weird, we’re going to go ahead and press that down. Now we’re going to take our piece that’s going the other direction and we’re going to put it over here. Ok I grabbed the wrong side. How you know whether you grabbed the wrong side or not is this this fabric, you want the fabric to go up next to the white. So then we’re going to add this piece on over here. Now I like to sew from the top so I’m just going to lay this right here and I’m going to sew my quarter of an inch right down the side. And you can see this is starting to form up. And you sew all the way down to the end of your, of your little geese like this. Alright now let’s press this open. But let me show you first. So you can see, here’s my quarter of an inch all the way down. And then we’re going to press this open. Now this little part right here, this is actually kind of the most difficult part about this is the little star right here that we’re making. And I’m going to iron this seam over. I want it to lay over this way. And it just takes some convincing with the steam. Alright. So now we have this right here.

So now you see, see these edges right here that come on the binding tool so it’s already at the 45, that’s going to make your braid. So now what we’re going to do is again is your fabric, your printed fabric is going to go next to your geese. And you’re going to lay this on here like this. And see this is going to make a braid that is already at a 45 all the way up. So we’re going to add another piece. And I’m just going to add a few of these so that you can see how this comes together. I have one that’s just about, you know, it’s already started a little bit of the way for you to see. But I’m going to show you how to get this together first. Also when I do a quilt like this that requires ironing at every seam, I make myself a little nest. So where my studio is, I’m going to have a little board that’s right next to me. I actually use a TV tray, cover it with an ironing cloth. And I just sew and iron and sew and iron. It makes it really convenient. Alright so now we’re going to put this one over here. So can you see how this is building. And we’ll add another. And we’ll add another. Wait, oop this one is going the wrong direction. So you’ll just keep adding them on like this and it will just grow long.

So then you’ll get a piece that looks like this. So I have one that’s done just a little ways. And obviously I’m going to go ahead and make that, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to make that long. But I have this one little piece I showed you because I want to show you how I started and how I finished. So once I get my long braid like this done, right here at the very end, so where’s my end? Here, right here. See right here, I used my little geese as the starting point. And so what I did was I took my little geese right here. And I just put my ruler, I laid it on the edge of that geese right there. And then I just trimmed these off right here, just like that. And that makes your straight edge for your starting point. Now your finishing point, you have to do some squares up here to make it square and blend in. And I actually was really excited because I kind of thought these would work but they didn’t really work. And they didn’t give me the geese. And so I had to go back with my background fabric. So I cut one square for one side, you’re going to have two squares or two different sizes because this side is going to be longer than this side. So this size right here, I think I cut it about 6 ½. It could be 6 ¼ and save you a little room. And I just put it on here like this and sewed. I always like a little bit of extra room when I’m doing mine so I can trim it off and make sure that, you know, make sure that I have enough. I’m pretty sure you can get away with 6 ¼. I think that’s what the pattern says. You know me, I always just do it and try it and then they have to write and figure out what I’ve done. Alright so I’m ironing this back. And now I have my, my square on the other side right here. It’s going to be a little bigger. We’re going to put that right on there, sew a quarter of an inch down. Alright so now I’ve got this sewn down and let’s iron that back. And then we can square off this top. You know I realized I just told you the wrong size. This big one is 6 ½, this small one is 5 1/2 . But I’m pretty sure you could get away with a 6 ¼ . So let me go ahead and trim up this edge now. So I’m going to line my ruler kind of along this edge. Clean up any little stray parts that are like, you know, creeping out right there. We’re going to cut this right across the top, straight. And then I’m going to come down this other side. So you can see something you know I’ve got quite a bit of wiggle room here. Make sure that you’re lined up and you’re square at the top. And then you’ve made your little, your little top. So it hangs on there really straight.

Now for each row you’re going to need 20, 20 of these. There’s five rows and we’re going to put 20 in each row. And so it just comes together so quick and fun because once you get these rows done you just lay this sashing in here. Now the sashing doesn’t match to anything. But you can see that we’re going this way with this row and we’re going this way with this one row. So they switch and change and it just comes together so cute. Now I just wanted to show you one more little thing. This is one where I started with the white fabric and used the colored fabric as the geese. So don’t be afraid to play with this. Make sure you pick a geese that’s going to pop and really show because when you do your work on these you’ll want to make sure that at the end of the day you have an awesome looking quilt. So I really enjoyed making this. It’s fun to take a tool that you use for something else and get a new use out of it. And I just hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the Geese in Motion quilt from the MSQC.