Hi friends!

This month as I was working on my October Imagination Renovation Block Challenge, I had a piecing dilemma. 

The Block

This month’s block is the Dutchman’s Puzzle.

The basic block has flying geese units in it. And each unit is made of 2 colors.

Next week, as part of the Exploring the Basics blog series, I will share my reimagined block! 

The Dilemma

Here was my dilemma, can I still piece the flying geese units using my favorite 4 at once method (AKA the No Waste method) if I need the geese to be made of 3 colors and with each geese unit looking exactly the same?

Piecing using flying geese units 

In this previous blog post, I shared different ways to make FG units, including the 4 at once method. In this method,  from 4 small squares and 1 large square you end up with 4 flying geese units that look all the same.

If you were to follow the same method but use 2 different small squares, you would end up with 4 FG units that are similar, but they are actually 2 sets of mirror images- not all exactly the same.

I wanted my FG units to use 3 fabrics but look all the same. One easy way to do this would be to cut the squares into triangles and sew the units together the old fashioned way.

But I wondered, can I use the 4 at once method and make it work? And yes, I can! Now you may know another way to make this work but here is how I did it.

The Solution!

I started the same way, with 4 small squares- 2 of each of my “side” fabrics and 1 large square for the geese.

Here is what changed. While I did not cut my large square into 4 pieces, I did cut my small squares in half on the diagonal once for 2 small triangles from each square.

I lined up 2 of the triangles, 1 of each color, onto the large square just like you would 1 with one small square. 

Then I added 2 more triangles, making sure to alternate the fabrics. 

Then I sewed ¼” away from the diagonal line on both sides, cut the piece apart and pressed.

I again added the triangles alternating the colors, sewed, cut and pressed!

Ta-done! All my geese have the green on the right.

The Tips

When doing this, you just need to know which side you want the colors to end up on. For my units, I wanted the “color”- green or purple- on the right side when the black geese was pointing down and the black and white check on the left side. (see above)

So, to piece the units the way I wanted, , the “color” triangle needed to be in the upper left and lower right. Once you know where to place the colors, the process is Easy Peasy!

I hope that made sense for you- the trickiest part is knowing where to place each color to start. After that just always alternate the colors and you are good to go!

Next week I will show you my reimagined block and the project I made using the new block!

happy quilting!

Kate