A (Very Large) Flying Geese Quilt

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A couple days ago all the blocks for this quilt were laying on the floor in our bedroom, and I was quite disappointed. The quilt had not turned out like I expected. When I looked at the blocks, I felt like the ‘flying geese’ part of the quilt was kind of lost among the busyness of the prints.

In my mind, though, there is no turning back after 144 blocks have been made. I continued on.

For the short and skinny of the post, here are the pertinent links:
No waste flying geese method that I used.
My post with details about individual blocks.
(Large blocks were 11 7/8. Small blocks were 5 1/4)
Fabrics on the front still readily available. (Strawberries in blue, peach, cayenne, and stars in black.)
Gray backing fabric – Peppered Cottons in charcoal.
How to baste a large quilt.
Hand quilting supplies.

Most of these fabrics are older ones from Cotton and Steel. They are so fun. Fresh Modern Fabrics on Etsy had a good hand full of these prints still available…sheep, acorns + strawberries, XOXO in mint green, gum wrappers in purple, Welsummer Kitchen, dots in Dijon mustard.

The strawberries and stars are from the Darlings line by Ruby Star Society. The best way to find the strawberries and stars is just by typing them into Etsy and hoping for the best. They seemed to have sold out from stores relatively fast.

I started sewing this gigantic quilt together. Somewhere in the midst of the quilting, I realized my math had gone terribly wrong somewhere in the process of making this quilt. (This happens on a regular basis.) My goal was to make an oversized throw quilt…maybe approximately the size of a twin sized comforter. This blanket is an oversized queen quilt. It’s huge. I’m still not sure what happened.

The boys tell me it’s the perfect size for making forts.

After I had the first few rows together, the quilt started growing on me, and by the end, I am actually truly enjoying this quilt. I love the colorful whimsyness of it. I feel like it’s totally appropriate for a house full of children. My middle son can’t wait to use it as a fort building blanket because it’s so big. (Little does he know it will likely take me a full year to hand quilt it.)

My husband mentioned that my tastes are changing. He acknowledged that this quilt is so different…so much busier…than the first quilts I made. I agree. Everything used to be so white. I wanted white everywhere, and I’m drifting more and more toward color than I have in a while.

If you are a color lover or not, though, who can really resist those strawberries? I love them!

After I had sewed all the individual flying geese blocks, I was highly anticipating a chore of a time sewing them together. My blocks were not perfect, and I did absolutely no trimming on these flying geese blocks. I figured I’d regret making them with the ‘no waste‘ method. Some were quite wonky and trimming much at all was near impossible.

BUT. I have to say, this is one of the most square quilts I think I’ve ever made. I was honestly amazed at my points lining up. I often find myself adjusting here and there to get perfectly nested seams and such. You’ll find little creases all over my quilts where I fudged the fabric a bit to get a perfect intersection. This one has very few puckers and creases to make up for imperfections.

Our little girl is due any day now. With the anticipation of her arrival at anytime, I went ahead and finished the backing with what I had on hand and basted it. My original plan was to purchase additional yardage of the pink strawberries on the blue background. I grew a bit concerned, though, that if the backing was not completely square with the front, the straight line quilting may make things look wonky.

Instead of the strawberries, then I decided to purchase the black stars on the creamy natural background. The stars are randomly placed and would look good no matter how I quilted the top

Then I finished the quilt top and looked at my shelves. I had purchased some charcoal peppered cotton yardage over a year ago when my local quilt shop had a huge sale. It was originally intended for the back of a different quilt, but I decided this was a good opportunity to use what I had on hand. Since the charcoal backing was about 24 inches too short, I used up some scraps to finish it out and make it large enough for the quilt.

While I wouldn’t want a scrappy backing on all my quilts, this one seemed to lend itself well to a fun surprise on the back. (Not to mention it’s likely wise to use what I have on hand instead of almost always buying more…)

Once again, my enjoyment for hand quilting (favorite supplies here) is not diminishing at all these days. I decided to hand quilt this one. Will it take me a long time? Absolutely. For some reason, I just haven’t grown tired of it. It slows down my finish time of quilts by about a year though. I’m still working on hand quilting my Christmas quilt. I’m hoping to have that one done by the first day of winter this year.

I used a creamy white called Ecru. It’s, once again, Pearle cotton thread size 8. I get most of my Pearle Cottons at Hobby Lobby or off Amazon.

My husband still reads to the boys almost every evening before bed. They’re always all engrossed in some great chapter book, and they’ll read for thirty or more minutes. It’s a wonderful time for me to be present with the family and keep my hands busy.

Once the quilting is finished, my plan is to bind it with the airplanes on the natural white print. I have almost a full yard of that left, and I think it will be plenty for this large quilt.

Finishing this quilt top was so satisfying. I’ve had a number of unfinished quilts in progress for a while now, and this was one of them. It contains some of my favorite fabrics (ALL the strawberry prints and the eggs), and I like having a good reason to use them all up.

If you’re wondering about fabrics, these are all older Cotton and Steel prints and newer Ruby Star Society prints from their Darlings line. (Ruby Star Society was formerly part of Cotton and Steel.) You can still find the strawberries in blue, peach, cayenne. There are also plenty of stars in black. The rest of the fabrics are older ones from Cotton and Steel. They are so fun. Fresh Modern Fabrics on Etsy had a good hand full of these prints still available…sheep, acorns + strawberries, XOXO in mint green, gum wrappers in purple, Welsummer Kitchen, dots in Dijon mustard.

I used a different batting this time than usual. I used Organic Cotton Quilt Batting by Fairfield. I think it has a pretty good loft, but I will go back to my Warm and Natural or Warm and Plush next time. I think I like it better.

We basted this one as usual crawling around on the floor. I used Basting Spray and then finished with a couple pins to ensure everything held well.

Many quilters talk of basting on tables or using pool noodles. I’m assuming there are easier ways to baste an oversized queen quilt, but this is still what works best for us.

I’m terrible at taking pictures of the entire quilt, but here is the front and back for anyone desiring to see the quilt in full!

Have a good week, friends! 🙂