Ready to Fly

When I made that first flying geese block yesterday, I was trying to be very careful.  

Usually when I paper piece, I just take a huge chunk of fabric, and wind up with a lot of waste.  In this Alex Anderson book, she has you cut the fabric ahead of time.  That could be useful, but my experience is that when directions have you do that, they are pretty stingy with the dimensions.  I need lots of slop room when I paper piece.

I enlarged the pattern, but didn't take that into account when cutting the fabric.  Don't ask me why.  (Maybe because I did those tasks on different days.)  Anyhow, good thing I only cut enough for one block.  But it worked out fine - instead of cutting squares into four triangles, I cut them into two.  Voila - just the right amount of extra.  Whew!

I'd like the other blocks to go faster, so today I cut out all the fabric.  Instead of making one block at a time, I'll sew the same seam on all twelve blocks, then trim that seam to 1/4" on all twelve, then press all twelve, then sew the next seam.

That ought to make these geese fly.