Taking a break from the “parade o’ quilts” from the Cincinnati show… 😉

In recent months, I’ve been catching up on old episodes of The Quilt Show (online) that I’d originally missed at the time of their airing.  In episode #107, Ricky Tims demonstrated a technique he learned of from a quilting group in England that allowed one to make flying geese blocks with only one seam.  As I find these things rather cumbersome, but love how they look in a quilt, I was most intrigued, and gave it a whirl myself. 

For my purposes, I duplicated Ricky’s selected sizes: 3 x 5.5-inch rectangles, and 3-inch squares.  You’ll need twice as many squares as rectangles.

Next, take one 5.5″ strip and fold in half, WRONG sides together.  Now, take two 3″ squares to assemble a sandwich of sorts.  Place the first square, right side of fabric facing up, place the folded rectangle on top, and your last square face DOWN on top of the folded fabric.  The folded edge of the middle fabric will be away from you, and slightly short of the squares; align bottom edges of squares and the two cut edges of the rectangle together. 

Pin this unit, for best results.

Using a precise quarter-inch seam allowance, stitch down the side of the assembled square.

Upon opening, your unit should now look like this:

Spread the folded rectangle fully along the 45-degree axis until you achieve that perfect triangle shape, and press.

The fun part of this, beyond a more textured effect to the flying geese (and itty bitty pockets for candy and such), is that once those little sandwiches are stacked, you can sew one after the other, cranking geese out quickly. 

NOTE!  When attaching these blocks into your project, be very aware of the fact that you have two loose layers of fabric in there and four layers altogether.  Until the bottom of the block is sewn into something, the only secure part of the “goose” is at the top.  Shifting WILL occur if the triangle part especially is not vigilantly pinned down during piecing.  For best results, I found I needed a pin at one-inch intervals.

After that show, Ricky Tims’ father was so inspired, he actually crafted a whole quilt with this block.  I apologize for the fuzzy image, as it was created using the Print Screen function as the show was playing, but you get the idea.