Doing It Wrong On Purpose

I am a rule-follower by nature and I always have been. It’s probably one of the reasons I was drawn to quilting to begin with. There are already tried and true methods to creating beautiful, sturdy quilts that last for generations, so all that’s needed is to simply follow directions at written. However, every now and again, I come across a situation where I have to break the rules, and one of those situations popped up recently.

Back in April, I joined a Sew-along through the Modern Quilt Guild, where any guild member that wanted to, could create the Criss Cross Chain quilt pattern, written by Wendy Chow. My intention was to take this as an opportunity to use up some of my scraps from my ever-expanding scrap bin. It was also an excellent exercise to hone my skills in color and value. Instead of buying all the yardage I need for the five fabrics required for the pattern, I would take the fabrics scraps available to me and, to the best of my ability, create my own “five fabrics” by grouping medium pinks, light peaches, bright orange, bright aqua, and a deep burgundy.

I certainly had difficulty finding enough orange fabrics to fit the bill, and maybe sometimes there was too blurred a line between a light pink scrap and a light peach scrap, but the real problem came in when I got to my aquas. I have a TON of scraps that fall into the range between blues and greens. It’s a little ironic, because it is a very rare occasion I will pick a blue or green fabric, but the no-man’s land in between the two colors must really speak to me, because I have made several quilts with these colors, ergo, my scrap bin is overflowing with it. However, none of these scraps were large enough for what I needed according to the pattern.

I needed 6.25” squares for my Fabric C, but none of my aqua scraps were large enough.

The pattern called for us to make Flying Geese blocks using the four-at-a-time method, with one big block (I’m using aqua) and four small blocks (pinks and peaches) assembled in a certain way to make four Flying Geese each. Ok. So my aqua pieces aren’t big enough. No big deal. I’ll just do a little math, use smaller pieces, and make my Flying Geese with the two-at-a-time method, OR just keep it real simple (and smaller) and make each Flying Geese one at a time….except I had already cut all of my pink and peach pieces, so reworking it entirely would have rendered all that cutting I had done virtually pointless.

My decision to go rogue was born from me refusing to cut from yardage for this pattern. The goal was to use scraps, and so that’s what I was going to do.

Now if you are familiar with a Flying Geese block, you know that it is rectangle consisting of three triangles. There are multiple correct ways to creating a Flying Geese block and they all involve beginning with squares and rectangles, but certainly no triangles; But triangles were the only shape I could get to work with the scraps and already cut pieces.

By my best measurements, I needed a unfinished-sized 4.25” right-angle triangle to create my Flying Geese block if I couldn’t find a 6.25” square piece to create four Flying Geese at a time.

Now, a little bit of this was done wrong on accident, too. I knew finished-sized measurements of my triangle (and the sides I’m referring to are the ones on the right angle, not the hypotenuse), but what I failed to remember is that once your 1/4” seam allowance is turned on a 45 degree angle, the seam allowance measures closer to 3/8th inch from side to side (not on the angle). So if you’re trying this at home, maybe double and triple check that math.

So, I went about cutting out my triangles from the scraps I had available. I don’t have a collection of specialized rulers, so to find the size I needed, I laid down some 1/4” making tape to visualize my 4.25” right triangle. I already had my pink and peach squares cut to size, for the correct way of making the blocks. For this incorrect way, I had to cut them in half diagonally.

The blue triangle is my “goose”, the pink/peach triangles because the background (or “sky”) of the block.

I used Wendy Chow’s pattern directions to determine when and where I was to use a light versus a medium triangle, but I started on one side, with the small triangle hypotenuse aligned with a right angle side of the large triangle. Pinned, sewed, pressed, and then did the opposite side.

Now, whether it is because the four-at-a-time method intended for the Criss Cross Chain quilt requires precision, or because of my 3/8th inch snaffu I mentioned early, or possibly a combination of the two, many of my Flying Geese were slightly shy of the width I needed. But no worries. This is where I fudged my construction like an expert. For the blocks that were short, I simply offset them about an 1/8th inch when sewing my quarter inch seam allowance, and I still had a 1/8th inch to spare.

When I sewed together a block that was 1/4” too narrow with a block of the correct size, I would shift my short block 1/8th inch away from the edge of the correct block, leaving me with 1/8th inch of the block to live inside my seam-allowance.

One side of the seam allowance is a true 1/4”. The other side is 1/8th”.

When the time comes for basting this quilt, I may go through and examine my seam allowances. If some look dangerously skimpy and risk popping, I will probably go and add a bit of fray check (or whatever kind of fray-stopping adhesive), just in case.

So. Did I make these Flying Geese correctly? Absolutely not. Are these Flying Geese perfect? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Would the quilt police have something to say about this? Almost definitely. And do I care? Most definitely not.

Using my imperfect Flying Geese, I was able to put together the main blocks for this quilt pattern. They look pretty dang good to me. Some of my points aren’t perfectly aligned, and technically, the grainline of my fabrics are all which way. It may not win entry into a quilt competition. I’ll let you know if I ever attempt to enter it into one. My goal I set out with was to make a quilt top using my scraps and not use any yardage. I haven’t finished to quilt top, yet, so I can’t say I have completed my goal as of today, but when it is finished, it will have come entirely from my scrap bin. And if I had to break a few rules to accomplish this goal, I’m good with it.